Project Structure

Background

From Gulf of Guinea Project to Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem Project

In November 1995 Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo begin a joint “Water Pollution Control and Biodiversity Conservation” pilot project in the Gulf of Guinea predicated on the Large Marine Ecosystem concept. The Global Environment Facility provided a 6-million US dollar grant, with co-financing from other countries. In 1998, ministers of environment of Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo adopt the Accra Declaration on the environmentally sustainable development of the Gulf of Guinea Large Marine Ecosystem (GoG-LME). In, 2003 the GoG-LME expanded to include 16 countries and was named the Interim Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem, with US $20 million provided by the Global Environment Facility. Between them, the governments and private sector of the 16 countries pledge another US $32 million co-financing in cash and kind. On 2 July 2010, GCLME environment ministers agreed to the creation of the permanent Guinea Current Commission. This far-reaching decision by the Committee of Ministers of the Environment, who met in the Ghanaian capital Accra, was designed to streamline and bolster the management of the region’s Large Marine Ecosystem, an endangered body of water and 5,560 kilometres of coastline stretching from Guinea-Bissau to the northern Angolan Province of Cabinda. The countries making up the GCLME region are Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea (and its five islands), Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and the island nation of São Tomé e Príncipe. Below is an organization chart of the IGCC’s structure and function.

Below is an organization chart of the IGCC’s structure and function.