Technical delegates from fifteen ECOWAS states began a two-day review of West Africa’s water resources programme in Abidjan on 22 September 2026, convened by ECOWAS, UEMOA and CILSS.
The 13th Ordinary Session of the Technical Experts Committee of the Permanent Framework for Coordination and Monitoring (PCMF) of Integrated Water Resources Management brought together national focal points, transboundary basin organisations, technical and financial partners and civil society representatives, according to a report from the Economic Community of West African States.
Delegates reviewed the implementation status of regional resolutions and prepared recommendations for the 6th Ordinary Session of the Ministerial Monitoring Committee.
Opening the session on behalf of Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Water and Forests, Jacques Assahoré Konan, the ministry’s Chief of Staff, Conservateur Général Elvire-Joëlle Zouzou épouse Mailly, placed the meeting within the country’s water governance reform agenda.
She cited the adoption of a new Water Code in 2023, a revised National Water Policy and a Water Resources Master Plan as evidence of Côte d’Ivoire’s institutional readiness to host the session.
Speaking for the three co-organising institutions, KOUASSI Kouakou Alexis, Director of the ECOWAS Water Resources Management Centre, described a regional hydrological context marked by climate variability, demographic pressure and ecosystem degradation, which he said posed direct risks to food security, energy development and regional stability.
“Integrated Water Resources Management is no longer simply a methodological option.
It is a necessity for survival and a powerful driver of regional integration,” he said, calling on technical experts to apply scientific rigour and forward-looking analysis in converting hydrological risk into a basis for cooperation, security and sustainable growth.
The session bureau was constituted in line with the Framework’s statutory provisions. Senegal took the chairmanship through Dr Bakary Fatty, with a rapporteurship rotating among Burkina Faso, Ghana and Cabo Verde.
Proceedings included an institutional clarification of the Framework’s mandate, which convenes all fifteen states of the region on an equal footing under a Water Resources Policy for West Africa jointly developed by ECOWAS, UEMOA and CILSS.
The technical review centred on the implementation status of the fourteen resolutions adopted at the 5th Ministerial Session.
Delegates noted that two regional directives, one on the development of hydraulic infrastructure and one on the management of shared water resources, were adopted by the ECOWAS Council of Ministers in December 2024 and remain pending official publication.
Discussions also covered the ongoing revision of the West Africa Water Resources Policy.
The session noted the region’s continental position on treaty accession, with eight of the fifteen African states party to the 1992 United Nations Water Convention belonging to ECOWAS, and Benin’s formal accession expected in November 2026.
Participants identified unresolved implementation gaps.
These included the absence of operational follow-up on the proposed West African Water Fund despite a World Bank-funded feasibility study, and the pending signature of a cooperation agreement with Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar as focal institution on regional water centres of excellence.
Among the advances reported were the establishment of the Mano River Transboundary Basin Management Authority, whose legal instruments have received technical and ministerial validation, and the co-development, with the World Bank, of Pillar 4 of the Regional DREVE Programme.
The session also took civil society input on institutional participation.
Dr Boluwaji Onobolu, President of the Sub-Regional Consultative Council on Water Resources (CRCE), whose 45-member body brings together technical experts, basin organisations and civil society representatives, called for more systematic coordination across the Council’s constituent colleges, including stronger integration of gender and youth considerations into the Centre’s activities.
The intervention came shortly after the Council elected a substantive chairperson for the first time in two decades.
The outcomes of the 13th Ordinary Session will form the technical basis for deliberations at the 6th Ordinary Session of the Ministerial Monitoring Committee on IWRM.
They will also feed into the First West Africa Regional Water Forum (FREAO), scheduled for 24 to 25 September 2026 in Abidjan under the theme “Valuing Water to Transform West Africa.”
The session sits within a longer regional calendar that includes the 2026 United Nations Water Conference in Abu Dhabi and the African Union’s designation of 2026 as the “Year of Water.”
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