ECOWAS Commission Launches Process For The Establishment Of Regional Carbon Market

As part of the implementation of the Regional Climate Strategy, the ECOWAS Commission, through the Department of Economic Affairs and Agriculture, is organizing a regional meeting from 6 to 8 August in Abidjan on the process of establishing a standardized regional carbon market in West Africa.

The objective of the workshop is to lay the foundations for the process of establishing the regional carbon market through its appropriation by stakeholders in the field and to analyze the basic documents developed for this purpose.

In her address at the opening of this workshop, Ms. Massandjé TOURE-LITSE, Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, noted that this process aims to seize opportunities for mobilizing financing related to carbon credit transactions in West Africa; the carbon market being one of the financial instruments under the Paris Agreement. She therefore invited the experts and representatives of the Member States present to contribute to the success of this process.

Presiding over this opening ceremony, Mr. Parfait KOUADIO, Director of Cabinet at the Ministry of the Environment, Sustainable Development and Ecological Transition, representing Mr. Minister Jacques Konan Assahoré, welcomed the initiative taken by the ECOWAS Commission.

Mr. KOUADIO indicated that the current vulnerability of African countries and ECOWAS in particular should not be considered as inevitable, but as a call for collective action and regional solidarity, hence the relevance of this process launched by the ECOWAS Commission.

This workshop brings together key stakeholders, including Member States, carbon market experts, international technical and financial partners (USAID, Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings, International Emissions Trading Association, Rabobank, Clean Valley Capital and Be Zero Carbon, Africa Energy Transition Services) as well as regional and international institutions including the UEMOA Commission, the AGRHYMET Regional Center, WASCAL, BOAD, WAPP, ERERA, ARAA.