Maputo (Mozambique) July 29 {No.98-162} - Environment ministers and representatives from over 40 African countries made a political commitment to take action to halt the degradation of Africa’s coasts through a joint Declaration and a 5-year Action Plan, estimated at US$ 300 million, for the sustainable integrated management of the continent’s coastal areas.

At the close of a pan-African Conference on Sustainable Integrated Coastal Management (PACSICOM) in Maputo last week the ministers catalogued some of the key issues facing African coastal states in their joint Declaration. Among the issues addressed, the ministers included recognition of the contribution of coastal ecosystems to the livelihood of coastal communities and national economies. Increasing population pressure, with pollution, destructive fishing, and over-exploitation it brings, said the Declaration, are threatening the ability of these ecosystems to perform vital functions, notably recycling nutrients and protecting the shoreline from erosion.

Ministers concurred on the need for a regional response, not least because of many of the 50 or so major river basins in Africa are shared by more than one country. Ministers affirmed the wish to include land-locked countries in future discussions.

In the Maputo Declaration, ministers promised to review their respective national commitments to existing conventions and agreements to conserve the coastal environment, in particular Chapter 17 of Agenda 21 - the set of resolutions arising from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 - and resolutions made at regional meetings on sustainable integrated coastal management in Arusha, Tanzania, (1993) and the Seychelles (1996).

This high-level policy review will take place at a meeting to be held in Cape Town (South Africa), November 30 - December 4, organised by the Advisory Committee on protection of the Sea (ACOPS). This will be the first of a series of meetings following on from Maputo, forming what will be known as the “PACSICOM process.” Ministers also pledged to involve the private sector in these discussions.

In their 5-year Action Plan, ministers decided to address a list of action priorities drawn up by a committee of experts at the start of the week-long PACSICOM meeting in Maputo. Actions should, the ministers agreed, be planned within “existing regional conventions, intergovernmental programmes and institutional mechanisms for co-operation and co-ordination.” The conference called on bilateral and multilateral organisations “to support these efforts through their programmes in Africa.”

The Maputo Action Plan includes:

- strengthening the existing institutional and legal framework for integrated management of coastal areas. This entails ratifying relevant environmental agreements, harmonising legislation and giving strong mandates to national authorities “for effective actions in dealing with the multidisciplinary and complex challenges of the management of coastal areas”

- ensuring that all levels of civil society, non-governmental organisations and the private sector are involved in both drawing up and implementing policies

- more training in coastal and marine issues at all educational levels

- better collection and sharing of scientific information needed for effective coastal management

- improved co-operation at subregional, regional and international levels, for example, to avoid duplication, while making use of local knowledge

- promoting demonstration projects and programmes in the region to serve as models of best practice

- ensuring long-term funding for sustainable integrated coastal management, within government budgets as well as with support from bilateral and multilateral donor agencies.

A planning meeting to secure funds is scheduled for next year as part of the PACSICOM process. It will bring ministers and funding agencies together in an effort to raise the estimated $300 million needed to implement the regional five-year plan for coastal management.

Summing up the meeting, Mozambique’s Minister for Co-ordination of the Environment, Bernardo Ferraz, said that PACSICOM will now set up a co-ordinating committee to help maintain the momentum developed in Maputo. Mozambique will send a message on behalf of PACSICOM to Expo 98, taking place in Lisbon, to reaffirm the support of African countries to the International Year of the Ocean currently underway.

PACSICOM was organised by the government of Mozambique, in partnership with UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the government of Finland.

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