ECOWAS COASTAL AND MARINE RESOURCES MANAGEMENT CENTER

The ECOWAS Coastal and Marine Resources Management Centre is the Regional implementation center for the monitoring of coastal and marine resources management in the ECOWAS sub-Region. It is responsible for coordinating activities that utilize earth observation data from satellite to help manage fisheries resources, and also provide early warning information on ocean conditions for the benefit of artisanal fishers. The Center is one of six Regional Centers of Excellence which will implement the Pan-African program on Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) and is located at the College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana. The MESA project is aimed at enhancing coastal monitoring to help improve fishery management and reduce illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing practices; by providing information to relevant agencies. The activities of the Center are being supported under the 10th European Development at the tune of 1.92 million euros for three years.

About MESA

The MESA program was proposed through the Ouagadougou Declaration signed in September 2010 by the African Union Commission, the ACP Secretariat and the African Regional Economic Communities. The aim of the program is to ensure continuity of past investments on the use of Earth Observation data in Africa (e.g. PUMA and AMESD) and to provide an initial contribution to the GMES and Africa Initiative, which was called upon through the Maputo Declaration in October 2006 and included in the Joint EU-Africa Strategy as of December 2007.
Beneficiary Countries of the MESA program are 48 ACP countries of five African Regions, namely CEMAC, ECOWAS, IGAD, IOC and SADC. The contracting authority of MESA is the African Union Commission. The project is implemented by a Consortium led by Hulla & Co Human Dynamics KG. Funding is obtained from the 10th EDF of the European Union, with a budget of 37 million Euros and the time frame of implementation is from 2013 to 2017.