The Resilient lagoon Network: Securing sustainable coastal lagoons in West Africa

Description

The West African coastline is dominated by lagoons. They are important ecologically, economically and culturally, providing essential resources and ecosystem services to communities that surround them in both urban and rural settings. Some of the most densely populated and rapidly growing urban areas in the region are situated around lagoons, for example Accra (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria), Abidjan (Cote D’Ivoire) while in rural coastal areas, fishing communities are reliant on lagoons for their livelihood and wellbeing. The sustainability of these lagoons and the communities who rely on them is under increasing pressure from a complex set of interconnected issues including climate change, sea-level rise, pollution, poor waste management, lack of resource management, population growth and policy that favours top-down governance to the exclusion of local knowledges and priorities. The Resilient Lagoon Network (RLN) was developed by academics in UK, Ghana, Nigeria and Benin to facilitate dialogue and knowledge transfer and act as a platform to connect stakeholders, provide information and raise awareness of coastal lagoons. Working with lagoon stakeholders from countries represented in the network, the RLN has developed a framework for sustainable management of coastal lagoons in the region. To inform the framework, online and in person meetings were held, collecting perspectives and lived experience from lagoon stakeholders, who included coastal practitioners, community members, representatives of NGOs and those responsible for local management of lagoons. The feedback from meetings, together with a stakeholder survey, and country-specific knowledge from the RLN underpins the framework. The resultant framework has three parts: key indicators of a sustainable lagoon, tenets of effective lagoon governance, and key stakeholders. The key indicators of sustainable lagoons are divided into socio-economic, governance and environmental aspects, which are mapped to appropriate UN sustainable development goals. The tenets of effective governance are based on vertical (top-down meets bottom-up) and horizontal (collaboration across stakeholders) approaches that are participatory and embed good governance. The key stakeholders are categorised as communities, influencers, those with commercial interests and those responsible for lagoon governance. The framework is currently being disseminated to inform lagoon governance strategies and policies.

Period	20 Jun 2023
Event title	EUROLAG10
Event type	Conference
Location	Gdynia, PolandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International