African Ministerial Conference on the Environment Unveils Bold Environmental Action Plan for Africa
From unfurling plans to restore wetlands to devising strategies to promote eco-tourism, representatives of African nations met in December 2003 to launch the Action Plan for the New Partnership for Africa's Development Environment Initiative, a bold and exhaustive list of activities designed to safeguard Africa's environment, expand its economy, and fight poverty.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development approved a plan that among other things calls on its members to implement a long term ecological monitoring network, develop conservation strategies for West African elephants, control exotic aquatic weeds, conduct environment education training programs, and promote the protection and strategic use of groundwater resources.

The African Ministerial Conference on the Environment developed the Action Plan with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme and the Global Environment Facility. The African Union Summit endorsed the plan in July 2003. The overall objective of the action plan is to complement relevant African processes, including the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment work program established in 1985, with a view of improving environmental conditions in Africa in order to contribute to the achievement of economic growth and poverty eradication.

The results of the workshops were consolidated into the New Partnership for Africa's Development Environment Initiative, which is organized into clusters of programmatic and project activities to be implemented over an initial period of 10 years. The second meeting of the Partnership Conference on the implementation of the Environment Initiative of New Partnership for Africa's Development will be held in Senegal in December 2004.

The full text of the Action Plan for the Environment Initiative can be found at: http://www.touchtech.biz/nepad/files/documents/113.pdf.