Three speeches were delivered at the opening ceremony by the Chair of the Country Water Partnership of Benin (Benin CWP), the representative of GWP / WA, and the Director General of Water of Benin. All speakers stressed the importance of the meeting for reaching one of the objective of the Mekrou Project for the implementation of the cooperation framework on water for growth and long-term planning in the Mekrou transboundary basin. They invited participants to consider the document submitted by the consultants in order to make the necessary amendments, since the same exercise was done in Niger and Burkina Faso.
After reviewing the document, the participants identified certain points, the main ones are that the cooperation agreement must take into account the concerns on land degradation; Harmonization of the general objective of the cooperation agreement in Chapter 1 with that of the preamble; take into account the existing organs instead of instituting new cooperation bodies and strengthening the existing principles with the principles of the NBA and define specific principles for the Mekrou project.
The same exercise of national validation has already occurred on May 29 in Niger, in Burkina on June 4, 2015.
A regional workshop will be held from 14 to16 July 2015 in Cotonou with the Advisory Committee to complete the cooperation framework.