As part of the direction of the project, a stakeholder’s engagement workshop was organized on the 29th of November, 2018, at the Coconut Grove Regency hotel, Ghana to create awareness of the project and to seek the knowledge and ideas from the stakeholders.

The Objectives of the Workshop was to:

  • Seek a collective agreement with and among the stakeholders about which monitoring goals should be prioritized for the project
  • Identify indicators to efficiently map the project sites
  • Involve key actors and develop a long-term relationship with the indigenes of the project sites, and
  • Collect further input from stakeholders to better align the proposed monitoring program and framework with their needs.

“Dr Taibou (GDZHAO Project Cordinator) presented on project activities and deliverables to the stakeholders”

He explained that this West African project would contribute greatly to food security, strengthen the resilience of ecosystems and achieve the sustainable development goals. Again, he listed the 5 components of the project which are; development of a geoportal on wetlands, capacity building of stakeholders, support for the implementation of policies, communication, gender, sustainability and technology transfer and project coordination. In conclusion, he stated that the project was going to tackle water, soil and vegetation theme.

Themes

Participants were divided into three working groups under the themes Soil, Water and Vegetation/Land Use. The working groups facilitated in-depth discussion and deliberation on questions under each Theme. At the end of the discussions each group was invited to provide a report on their discussions.