The ECOWAS Parliament has called for urgent action to stem the tide of climate change and its ravaging effects across the West African sub-region.
Speaker Mémounatou Ibrahima made the appeal at the Parliament’s 2026 Second Extraordinary Session Seminar on Monday in Accra, Ghana.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event is themed: “Focusing on Climate Change, Environmental Degradation, Population Displacement and Growing Insecurity in the ECOWAS Region.”
Ibrahima warned that climate change fuelled displacement and insecurity, as environmental disruption was increasingly affecting livelihoods, communities and the security of populations across West Africa.
She said the effects of climate disruption could no longer be viewed simply through statistics or scientific projections, as communities were already experiencing its consequences.
The speaker, therefore, called for practical and people-centred responses to the growing effects of climate change.
“Climate disruption can no longer be measured only in degrees, statistics or projections. It is read in land that yields less, in coastlines that retreat, in flooded neighbourhoods, in families losing their livelihoods, and in communities forced to relocate.
“Behind the climate question lies a profoundly human one: how do we protect the living conditions, dignity and security of our populations when their environment is changing faster than their capacity to adapt to it?” She asked.
According to her, it is the responsibility of the regional parliamentarian to connect technical knowledge with the realities experienced by their constituents.
She said the expertise to be shared during the seminar would be valuable, but stressed that it needed to be combined with the experiences of lawmakers, who remained closely connected to their communities.
“Our responsibility during this seminar is precisely to connect these realities, not to restate here what we already know, but to better understand what is at stake in our territories and to consider the most appropriate responses.
“The expertise that will be shared with us should inform our discussions. But it must also meet the experience of parliamentarian, who remain in close contact with their territories and their people.
“It is from this dialogue between technical knowledge and lived realities that truly useful proposals can emerge,” she added.
NAN reports that the seminar is part of the activities of the Parliament’s Sixth Legislature, which brings the regional lawmakers together to examine the interconnected challenges facing communities across the sub-region.
Together with experts and other stakeholders, the parliamentarian are expected to examine how climate change and environmental degradation contribute to population movements and insecurity, to trigger regional responses.
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