The ECOWAS Parliament has placed climate financing, legislative oversight and regional cooperation at the centre of efforts to tackle environmental degradation, population displacement and insecurity across West Africa.
The call featured prominently as the regional legislature opened its Second Parliamentary Seminar and Second Extraordinary Session of 2026 in Accra, Ghana, with participants urging member states to move beyond climate commitments and translate policies into funded programmes and measurable interventions.
Representing Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama at the opening ceremony, Vice-President Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang said the interconnected nature of environmental stress, insecurity and disrupted livelihoods required a coordinated regional response.
She said pressures in one part of West Africa increasingly affect communities and national systems elsewhere, making isolated national responses inadequate.
Opoku-Agyemang called for stronger early-warning systems, improved support for communities hosting displaced populations, more resilient livelihoods and enhanced cross-border coordination.
“We need stronger early warnings, better support for host communities, more resilient livelihoods and better coordination across our borders, acting before local pressures become wider humanitarian crises,” she said.
She added that Ghana was working with ECOWAS to strengthen early-warning mechanisms through improved data sharing, closer cooperation and stronger links between national and regional response structures.
The vice-president also advocated increased access to climate finance and greater investment in resilient agriculture, water management, coastal protection and clean energy.
While acknowledging existing ECOWAS frameworks on free movement, disaster-risk reduction, climate action and early warning, she stressed that their effectiveness depended on implementation and adequate funding.
According to her, the priority should now be to translate regional commitments into practical measures capable of protecting vulnerable communities and reducing climate-related displacement.
The Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, Hadja Mémounatou Ibrahima, similarly urged lawmakers to ensure that climate commitments were reflected in legislation, national budgets and concrete government action.
She said climate change was increasingly affecting forests, coastlines and livelihoods while contributing to population displacement, thereby creating wider humanitarian, economic and security challenges.
Ibrahima said parliamentary oversight must ensure that climate-resilience policies incorporated economic, social, migration and security considerations alongside environmental protection.
“Our role is to ensure that public policy and budgets devoted to climate resilience … contain also the humanitarian dimensions, economic, social, migratory, and security concerns,” she said.
She cited flooding along the West African coastline as evidence of the interconnected nature of environmental emergencies, humanitarian pressures and insecurity.
The Speaker called for practical recommendations to protect vulnerable populations and prevent conflict, stressing that regional and national climate commitments must result in implementable measures.
The Ghanaian Parliament also urged ECOWAS member states to strengthen legislation covering environmental governance, climate adaptation, disaster preparedness and natural-resource management.
It called for stronger protection for displaced persons, refugees and host communities, alongside increased economic opportunities for women and young people.
Climate-smart agriculture, renewable energy and entrepreneurship were identified as areas requiring greater investment to strengthen livelihoods and improve communities’ capacity to withstand environmental shocks.
The Second Deputy Speaker of the Ghanaian Parliament, Andrew Asiamah, who represented Speaker Alban Bagbin, said no ECOWAS member state could address the region’s environmental and security challenges in isolation.
He noted that rivers, ecosystems and environmental crimes crossed national borders, making regional cooperation essential to tackling shared threats.
Asiamah also underscored the importance of financing, warning that policies without adequate resources risked remaining largely aspirational.
His remarks reinforced calls for governments to match regional commitments with the financial resources required for implementation.
The Head of Ghana’s Delegation to the ECOWAS Parliament, Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, said the regional legislature had an important role in addressing climate change and insecurity because of its proximity to citizens and communities.
He advocated a coordinated and holistic approach that brings together governments, legislators and communities in responding to challenges affecting populations across West Africa.
Meanwhile, the Second Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament is expected to consider the institution’s 2027 budget and activity programme.
The budget deliberations assume added significance against the backdrop of repeated calls at the seminar for adequate financing to turn regional commitments into practical programmes.
The parliamentary seminar is being held under a theme addressing the interconnected challenges of climate change, environmental degradation, population displacement and growing insecurity across the ECOWAS region.
The discussions have consequently put implementation, financing and legislative oversight at the heart of the regional response, with lawmakers seeking stronger mechanisms to protect vulnerable populations, build community resilience and address the humanitarian and security consequences of environmental change.
