The implementation of the VFDM project involves, in addition to the structures and national agencies in charge of meteorology, hydrology, water resources management, civil protection, environment, WMO partners, such as the CIMA Research Foundation, IUCN and the CERFE. One of the activities is to conduct desk studies to assess regional, national and local plans, policies and guidelines for the management of climate extremes (floods and droughts) available to regional and national stakeholders in the Volta Basin countries. The results of these studies were presented to the basin stakeholders during a regional workshop held on May 4-5, 2022, in Cotonou, Benin.
The country diagnoses were used to elaborate the action plans. Each country has proposed action plans with budgets and areas of intervention. These national action plans were pooled by the regional consultant to obtain a regional action plan or Volta watershed. The total estimated cost of the plan is seven billion, nine hundred and seventy-one million two hundred thousand (7,971,200,000) CFA francs i.e., more than €12,151,000. The action plan and budget were improved during the group work.
The workshop concluded that there is a strong political will to deal with droughts and floods. Sectoral policies integrate climate change and natural disasters to varying degrees. However, the implementation of actions remains weak.
For a sustainable management of the shared resource, it is imperative to strengthen the national and regional capacities of the stakeholders, the conduct of studies on the knowledge of water resources and the study of the vulnerability of the basin and the communities to climate change and the gradual implementation of an early warning system supported by an IEC strategy.