Did you know that Africa has a coastline of 18,950 miles or 30,500 kilometers from 38 coastal countries and a number of island states like Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Mauritius, Seychelles and the Comoros.

The African country with the longest coastline is Madagascar at 4,828 km followed by Somalia at 3,333 km, South Africa at 2,798 km, Mozambique and Egypt at 2,470km and 2,450 km respectively.

Although the continent has some of the most stunning beaches and coastlines in the world, human activity, erosion and climate change combine to wreck havoc on some of the coastlines, wiping out homes, roads and infrastructure in coastal communities across several countries including Benin, Togo, Ghana, Mauritania, Senegal and Nigeria in West Africa. Some of these coastlines are severely ravaged by plastic waste.

From April 22 – 26, 2024, we will be carrying out a sensitization project with stakeholders across West Africa to empower local communities to protect their environment and adapt to the growing impact of climate change.

The project will bring all critical stakeholders together across Benin, Togo, Senegal, Mauritania, Nigeria and Ghana to address the huge problem of Coastline degradation due to human activity, plastic pollution, erosion and climate change costing some countries in the sub region more than $3.8 billion annually and 13,000 lives as per a 2019 World Bank report.  According to a 2019 World Bank study, “environmental degradation in the coastal areas of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Togo cost $3.8 billion, or 5.3% of the four countries’ GDP in 2017” (1). “West Africa’s coastal areas host about one third of the region’s population and generate 56% of its GDP.“

“Beyond the economic cost, coastal degradation takes lives and destroys livelihoods; with more than 13,000 deaths annually due to floods, air and water pollution” A similar study of Cross River, Delta and Lagos States in Nigeria published in 2020 put the cost of coastal degradation due to floods, erosion and pollution at $9.7 billion or 2.4% of GDP in 2018 (2)

Sensitization, tree planting and sanitation exercises will run concurrently across the six countries April 22 – 23, 2024 culminating in a two-day international conference in Dakar Senegal April 24 – 25, 2024 and a World Press Conference holding on April 26, 2024.

Our approach is to engage stakeholders to enable a joint appreciation of the scale of the problem and to propose frameworks for practically solving the problem in an iterative and agile way. This will run concurrently with linkages to coastal communities encouraging them to change behavior where necessary

To know how you can participate, click Partner or send an email to partnerships@ajsd.org

References:

1. The Cost of Coastal Zone Degradation in West Africa: Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo; Leila Croitoru et al, World Bank 2019

2. The Cost of Coastal Zone Degradation in Nigeria: Cross River, Delta and Lagos States; Leila Croitoru et al, World Bank 2020