Mami Wata pilot countries take part in a Communications Training in Abidjan on 9-12 July 2019.

The Abidjan Convention (ABC), in collaboration with West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) and GRID-Arendal, hosted from 9-12 July 2019 a Behaviour Change Communication (BCC), Advocacy and Social Media Training. Among the participants were five project leads and communication specialists representing Mami Wata’s pilot countries. Abdoulaye Diagana, Senior Partnerships, Communication and Fundraising Specialist at ABC commented that “bringing together participants from different organizations and backgrounds has enriched everyone’s experiences. Participants overcame certain reservations about digital communication tools and fully understood the importance of planning their communication for better results”.

This four-day training focused on exchanging experiences around BCC, learning about the potential of edutainment to communicate challenging topics to certain audiences, as well as specific mobilisation campaigns targeted at local communities. Participants workshopped Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) documents and developed BCC strategies; they built their capacity around advocacy and how to plan and mobilise support, specifically with policy makers. Finally, there were some practical exercises around social media posting and photography techniques that will allow participants to hone their skills when it comes to communicating about their projects.

The five project leads and communication specialists greatly benefitted from this training; they are now back in their respective countries and will start implement some of the lessons learned from last week, which will significantly improve the efficiency of their outreach to their various stakeholders, which include, inter alia, governments, academia, civil society and local communities. Assane Fall, communications coordinator at the Senegalese Directorate of Communal Marine Protected Areas (DAMCP) had this to say about what he learnt last week: “We are currently developing a new campaign against single-use plastic and this training will help us increase our impact with local communities”.

Hermine Gbaguidi, Director of the Promotion of Eco Citizenship at the Ministry of Sustainable Development in Benin said that “I have benefitted immensely from this training as my strategic vision for the communication plan we are developing at the Ministry has improved”. This training showed the strength of regional collaboration between various projects in West Africa on the topics of climate change resilience and marine and coastal zones protection and bodes well for these partnerships to rise up to the many challenges faced by these fragile environments.

For more information, kindly contact:

Kenan Mogultay, WA BiCC: kenan.mogultay@wabicc.org; +225 (0) 78 74 40 66.

Abdoulaye Diagana, Abidjan Convention: abdoulaye.diagana@un.org; + 225 02 76 38 20.

Marco Vinaccia, GRID-Arendal: marco.vinaccia@grida.no; +47 948 04 222.

Marco VINACCIA

Picture: Alison Amoussou