18 September 2015: The International Maritime Organization (IMO) held a sub-regional workshop on shoreline clean-up and waste management operations for participants from 10 French-speaking African countries.

The IMO workshop was held 16-18 September 2015 in Libreville, Gabon, for officials and oil and gas industry representatives from: Benin, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Senegal and Togo. Participants discussed oil spill management, incorporating shoreline clean-up and waste management into national oil spill contingency plans, techniques for shoreline clean-up and waste management and related decision-making processes.

The workshop was organized within the framework of the Global Initiative for West, Central and Southern Africa (GI WACAF Project), a partnership between IMO and IPIECA, the global oil and gas industry association for environmental and social issues, to enhance the capacity of 22 countries to prepare for and respond to marine oil spills. During 2015, GI WACAF has held national workshops on sensitivity mapping and shoreline clean-up for The Gambia, an incident management system for South Africa and waste management for Namibia, as well as a bilateral exercise between Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to test communications to be used in case of a transboundary oil spill. [IMO News] [GI WACAF Project Website]