Home to 28 shared river basins covering nearly 71 percent of its total land area, one of the highest levels of water interdependence anywhere in the world, West Africa opened a defining chapter in its water governance calendar in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, on 22 September 2026, as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) convened the 13th Ordinary Session of the Technical Experts Committee of the Permanent Framework for Coordination and Monitoring (PCMF) of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Over the following two days, national focal points and technical delegations from the fifteen West African States, transboundary basin organisations, technical and financial partners, and civil society representatives reviewed the implementation status of regional resolutions and formulated recommendations for the 6th Ordinary Session of the Ministerial Monitoring Committee.

Declaring the session open on behalf of Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Water and Forests, Jacques Assahoré Konan, the Chief of Staff of the Ministry, Conservateur Général Elvire-Joëlle Zouzou épouse Mailly, situated the meeting within the country’s broader water governance reform agenda, citing 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 earlier on behalf of the three co-organising institutions, Mr. KOUASSI Kouakou Alexis, Director of the ECOWAS Water Resources Management Centre, framed the proceedings against a regional hydrological context marked by climate variability, demographic pressure and ecosystem degradation, factors he described as posing 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 stated, 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.

At the opening of the technical proceedings, the session bureau was formally constituted in accordance with the Framework’s statutory provisions: Senegal assumed the chairmanship through Dr Bakary Fatty, supported by a rapporteurship rotating among Burkina Faso, Ghana and Cabo Verde. Proceedings also 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 addressed the ongoing revision of the West Africa Water Resources Policy and underscored the region’s continental leadership 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, including 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 provided a platform for civil society input on institutional participation. The President of the Sub-Regional Consultative Council on Water Resources (CRCE), Dr Boluwaji Onobolu, 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 and will feed directly 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.” Beyond this immediate calendar, the session reaffirms the shared commitment of ECOWAS, UEMOA and CILSS to a long-term regional water agenda: consolidating twenty-five years of integrated water resources management in West Africa into durable financing mechanisms, operational transboundary institutions and measurable progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 6. As the region positions itself ahead of the 2026 United Nations Water Conference in Abu Dhabi and the African Union’s designation of 2026 as the “Year of Water,” this week’s deliberations in Abidjan mark a further step in West Africa’s ambition to translate water governance frameworks into concrete security, resilience and prosperity for its populations.