\n The funding marks the first phase of the West Africa Coastal Areas Blue Economy and Resilience Programme (WACA+), a regional initiative designed to help countries adapt to rising sea levels, restore damaged ecosystems, and create jobs in sectors such as fisheries, tourism, and coastal logistics.\n <\/p>\n
\n Coastal zones are among West Africa\u2019s most economically active regions, generating a large share of regional output and supporting millions of livelihoods.\n <\/p>\n
\n But decades of coastal erosion, flooding, and environmental degradation,worsened by climate change, have threatened homes, infrastructure, and fishing grounds across the region.\n <\/p>\n
\n Studies have previously estimated that coastal degradation costs West African economies billions of dollars each year.\n <\/p>\n
\n Protecting major cities and economic assets\n <\/p>\n
\n Under the new programme, Benin will receive support to stabilise the Bouche du Roy estuary and the mouth of the Mono River, areas critical to tourism, transport routes, and agriculture.\n <\/p>\n
\n In Mauritania, funding will go toward reinforcing the dune system that shields the capital, Nouakchott, from storm surges and flooding.\n <\/p>\n
\n The project will also restore up to 3,000 hectares of mangroves and coastal wetlands, ecosystems that serve as natural flood barriers while supporting fish breeding and coastal biodiversity.\n <\/p>\n
\n World Bank Regional Director Chakib Jenane said the initiative is aimed at helping communities already facing the effects of climate change.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWest Africa\u2019s coastal communities are on the frontlines of climate change,\u201d he said, noting that the programme would reduce exposure to erosion and floods for more than 500,000 people.\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Jobs and private investment at the centre\n <\/p>\n
\n Beyond infrastructure and environmental restoration, WACA+ is structured to stimulate private investment and job creation.\n <\/p>\n
\n The programme will provide technical assistance, training, and financing tools for micro, small, and medium-sized businesses in coastal economies, including fish processing, aquaculture, ecotourism, and maritime services.\n <\/p>\n
\n By 2031, more than 31,000 people are expected to benefit from training and business-development programmes, while the first phase alone is projected to create about 13,000 jobs across Benin and Mauritania.\n <\/p>\n
\n In Mauritania, the project includes a partial credit guarantee mechanism designed to unlock up to $20 million in new lending for fish-processing companies, an effort to address one of the main barriers facing coastal entrepreneurs: access to finance.\n <\/p>\n
\n Building on earlier regional efforts\n <\/p>\n
\n The new programme expands on the earlier West Africa Coastal Areas Management Programme, launched in 2018 to coordinate regional responses to shoreline erosion and flooding across several countries.\n <\/p>\n
\n That initiative funded seawalls, beach nourishment, and mangrove restoration projects, helping stabilise vulnerable coastlines and protect coastal communities.\n <\/p>\n
\n WACA+ aims to scale those efforts while placing stronger emphasis on economic development through the so-called \u201cblue economy\u201d.\n <\/p>\n
\n World Bank officials say future phases of WACA+ will extend to additional countries and eventually support more than 50,000 jobs while improving climate resilience for hundreds of thousands of coastal residents.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The funding marks the first phase of the West Africa Coastal Areas Blue Economy and Resilience Programme (WACA+),…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-541156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}