UNEP–GEMS Regional Workshop on Oil Spill Monitoring and Response in West Africa

On the 11th-13th of November, the Regional Workshop on Oil Spill Monitoring and Response in West Africa organised by UNEP–GEMS Ocean Programme in joint partnership with the Abidjan Convention Secretariat, and the MarCNoWA Project under Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES & Africa) with funds provided by the GMES &Africa project and Regional Seas Branch of the Ecosystems Division. 

The workshop worked towards enhanced regional capacity for satellite-based oil spill detection, drift modelling, and operational integration into national contingency systems. The key achievements from the session included strengthened inter-agency coordination, draft integration action plans and commitments from national authorities to improve monitoring workflows using MarCNoWA Earth Observation (EO) services.

The workshop featured a detailed presentation of the MarCNoWA Web Portal, which is the central online platform developed under the GMES & Africa Programme to operationalise satellite-based marine monitoring services across West and North Africa. The portal brings together multiple Earth Observation (EO) applications into one single & accessible interface designed for environmental, maritime, and security agencies across the region. Developed by the University of Ghana’s Regional Marine Centre in collaboration with eleven consortium partners, the portal serves the 18 coastal countries spanning Nigeria to Egypt, providing tools that complement national surveillance mechanisms and strengthen regional situational awareness.

 

 

During the workshop, there was the opportunity to draft policy briefs and develop the integration of action plans by national teams. Participants were additionally able to identify gaps in National Oil Spill Contingency Plans (NOSCPs) and share how EO technologies can be used to fill these gaps. National agencies were able to share commit to embedding MarCNoWA products into existing monitoring systems and stakeholders were trained on operational use of spill detection and drift forecast tools.

For a simulation exercise, Ghanaian participants, led by their Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) volunteered to use an existing programme, Obangame Express (OE) to look at Oil Spill detection tools for the year 2026. The OE is an annual combined Central and West African multinational maritime exercise in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG), which focuses on increased regional cooperation and maritime safety and security. The exercise involves West and Central African Navies and maritime stakeholders in partnership with the United States Euro-Atlantic navies.

 

 

One of the highlights was making sure that the development and involvement of coastal communities and particularly school children stay at the forefront of the work, generating  a lively discussion pointing at the use of citizen science in monitoring oil slicks. Participants also reviewed their legal mandates in relation to the Abidjan Convention’s Emergency Protocol, with emphasis on the following:

• Roles and responsibilities for monitoring and reporting spills.

• Institutional structures needed to integrate EO-based detection.

• Importance of national focal points and coordinated alerting procedures.

• Need for standardized metadata, formats, classification, and timestamps.

• A regional data-sharing framework has been proposed, supported by the Abidjan Convention Secretariat.

Earth Observation tools could significantly strengthen the areas where aerial/sea patrols are limited especially for the many countries that lack a structured process to interpret satellite spill detection. To support the strengthening of these tools, inter-agency communication needs to be formalized as it remains uneven across the region.

Recommendations from the workshop include but are not limited to:

  • Embedding EO spill detection and drift analysis into National Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
  • Harmonization of data-sharing standards under the Abidjan Convention particularly for the Protocol on Oil Spills.
  • Expanding technical and operational training under MarCNoWA to remaining countries and regions.
  • Systems improvement for real-time cross-border notification.

The next steps from the workshop look towards providing technical support missions to refine national action plans by GMES/MarCNoWA/ Abidjan Convention and GEMS Ocean Programme, the integration of EO workflows into updated national Oil Spill Contingency Plans (NOSCPs) and joint simulation exercises and refresher trainings with the Obangame Express programme in 2026.

There will also be the plan to share a presentation of workshop results during the 2nd GMES Forum in Egypt as requested by the African Space Agency.