Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience |  University of Cape Coast

The World Bank Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience (ACECoR) organised a meeting with Sectoral Partners on 20th March 2019 in Accra, Ghana, to present the project and discuss possible areas of collaboration.

At the meeting, the Director of ACECoR, Prof. Denis W. Aheto gave a presentation that summarised the entire five-year Project. This was to enlighten the partners present at the meeting on the various post-graduate programmes as well as the thematic areas of research earmarked for impact in West Africa within the lifetime of the Project. "The proposed vision is to promote coastal resilience within the sub-Region, through collaboration with industry, private and public sectors, locally and internationally," said the Prof. Aheto whilst explaining the rationale of the proposal submitted to the World Bank for the award of the ACECoR Project. This vision, he said, could not be achieved solely by the academicians.

"The proposed vision (of ACECoR) is to promote coastal resilience within the sub-Region, through collaboration with industry, private and public sectors, locally and internationally" - Prof. Denis W. Aheto

To end his presentation, the Director recounted events of the inauguration of the World Bank ACE Impact Projects about a month earlier, highlighting the attendance of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast and other members of the Project team. ACECoR is one of 44 Africa Centres of Excellence represented at the inaugural meeting, which took place in Djibouti.

The Deputy Director and Financial Management Coordinator for the Centre also took turns in explaining the ACECoR Project's Disbursement-Linked Indicators (DLIs) and the Finacial Management Plan respectively, to the stakeholders present at the meeting.

The Sectoral Partners at the meeting, who were selected based on their academic and/or industrial commitments in the coastal and marine sector of Ghana, shared comments and made suggestions that would be incorporated in the five (5)-year Implementation Plan for the ACECoR Project. The meeting revealed possible collaboration between ACECoR and her Sectoral Partners such as research in the areas of blue economy and big data analysis for coastal management, among others.

Present were representatives from Regional Maritime University, Environmental Protection Agency, Fisheries Committee for West and Central Gulf of Guinea, Ghana Meteorological Agency, Civil Engineering Department and Natural Resources Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. ACECoR is a World Bank ACE Impact Project on Coastal Resilience being implemented by the Centre for Coastal Management at the University of Cape Coast.