Workshop on impact of climate change - A three-day capacity building workshop to develop and implement relevant measures by ECOWAS member states, for direct access of funds and status of international negotiations on Climate Change, will start in Accra, Ghana, Wednesday, the ECOWAS Commission said in a statement issued in Abuja, Nigeria, Monday

According to the statement, made available to PANA here, participants will discuss a presentation on the development of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in the ECOWAS region, capacity building for implementation of NAMAs and enhancing negotiations in South Africa on the Kyoto Protocol regarding financial issues.

The workshop will also address the mainstreaming of NAMAs and Climate Change into development programmes, develop strategies to monitor the implementation of NAMAs in the region, and discuss capacity building of West African negotiators on Climate Change vis-à-vis the positions of countries and major blocks, in order to enrich Africa’s position in the climate change negotiations, it said.

'The ECOWAS Commission and a Mission from Ghana met last May at the Commission’s Abuja Secretariat to discuss the outcomes and recommendations of the first collaborative NAMAs workshop held in Accra with ECOWAS Climate Change Negotiators and also to prepare for the forthcoming regional workshop.

'That meeting recommended that the Commission should liaise with the Ghana team to explore the possibility of getting responses analyzed by a consultant, while the UNDP in Ghana should share experiences with their offices in other ECOWAS member states to help facilitate the development of their NAMAs,' it said.

The Commission was also requested to remind member states to submit the lists of NAMAs and topics for discussion and to ensure that other relevant stakeholders were invited to the workshop.

The 2007 Bali Action Plan on Climate Change required that NAMAs be developed by Country Parties in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner.

Pana 30/08/2011