University of Cape Coast

Centre for Coastal Management

Dear Distinguished Partners and Stakeholders,

LEADERSHIP TRANSITION AT THE CENTRE FOR COASTAL MANAGEMENT – AFRICA CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE IN COASTAL RESILIENCE (CCM-ACECoR) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST

I have recently taken over as the Acting Director of the Centre for Coastal Management -Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience ACECoR) at the University of Cape Coast (UCC). My predecessor, Prof. Denis Worlanyo Aheto (the Founding Director), worked tirelessly for many years to establish and place the Centre on a very high pedestal of academic excellence grounded on research intensiveness. As a result, the Centre’s contribution to coastal development efforts in West Africa and by extension Africa’s Blue Economy agenda cannot be understated.

As I take off from where he ended, it is just appropriate to appreciate his hard work, resilience and dedication and to recognize the positive impact our Centre has had on coastal management in Ghana and Africa. We have achieved a great deal together, and it’s important that we continue to build on his legacy and our collective progress. We need to embrace new opportunities while addressing the challenges that come with them. We need to be responsive to the needs of our clients and confront emerging issues that still lie ahead, some of which I will briefly highlight.

Looking forward, I wish to share my vision for the Centre, along with compelling reasons why your continued partnership is critical for the sustainable development of Africa’s coastal and marine spaces from a social, economic and environmental point of view.

Past Achievements

I wish to start by briefly re-introducing our Centre to you. Established in 2013 within UCC, the Centre for Coastal Management has steadily evolved to become a regional institution now commonly known as the Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience (ACECoR), working in collaboration with government, industry, private and other public-sector institutions to promote the sustainable use of coastal and marine resources. The Centre’s mandate revolves around addressing issues of degradation of Africa’s coastal and maritime environments, with a particular focus on the West and Central African regions. The intended goal is to help reverse the growing trends of destruction of the marine environment grounded on science, policy and community engagement. Specifically, our mandate is three folds including Applied Research, Capacity Building and Outreach. Research activities of the Centre currently revolves around five thematic areas in the areas of (i) Coastal Geomorphology and Engineering, (ii) Disaster Risk Management and Migration, (iii) Climate Change Adaptation, (iv) Blue Economy, Governance and Social Resilience and (v) Ecosystems and Biodiversity.

The thematic areas are all in the bid to examine the health of coastal and marine ecosystems toward conservation and restoration, and how marine resources can be sustainably harnessed to advance the Blue Economy. The Capacity Building activities of the Centre relate to identification of capacity needs in the coastal and marine domains, through needs assessments working with stakeholders like you, to develop relevant academic programmes and provide funding through scholarships to young Africans to pursue the programmes at the postgraduate level. Our capacity building activities also involve the enhancement of the skills of early- to mid- career professionals on the continent through the running of short courses in Climate Change, Blue Economy, Fisheries Management, Integrated Coastal Zone Management among others. The outreach activities focus on meeting pertinent needs of coastal communities through engaging them in livelihood enhancement programmes as well as involvement in policy-related outcomes to support governments in the sustainable management of coastal areas.

The Centre was operationalized by USAID funded initiative through a Fisheries Capacity Development grant from 2014 to 2020. By dint of hard work, the Centre was competitively selected by the World Bank in 2018 as an Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience (2019-2025) to research, build capacity, support the development of livelihood options in coastal communities and promote good practices and policy-oriented governance of coastal and marine resources on the continent. In this regard, the Centre since 2019, working with its allied partners and academic Departments in UCC has trained over 40 PhD students, and more than 120 MPhil Students from 18 countries of Africa including Ghana. The Centre has also trained almost 400 early- to mid-career professionals in various short courses that are developed by the Centre and its strategic partners

The Centre in the past 13 years of existence has committed itself to achieving the status of a world-class multi-disciplinary research environment. The Centre is endowed with experts with various backgrounds including, Fisheries Science, Aquaculture, Coastal Zone Management, Oceanography (including physical, chemical and biological), Pollution and Aquatic Ecotoxicology, Biodiversity Management and Conservation, Chemistry, Civil/Coastal Engineering, Natural Resource Governance, Economics, Ecology among others. The skills of these experts are brought to bear in a cross-disciplinary manner for enhanced professional and scientific outputs.

We have successfully collaborated and still working with many well-meaning development partners and key institutions including the World Bank, WACA, USAID, DANIDA, US Embassy in Ghana, JICA, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Light House Foundation (Germany), Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo, Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP), UKAID, IRD, France and the Association of African Universities (AAU) to mention but a few, all culminating into over 50 individual projects and consultancies executed across the region amounting to over US$ 30 million since inception

We have co-laboured along West Africa’s coast and maritime areas with institutions such as Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), ECO-BENIN, Hen Mpoano, CEMLAWS Africa, Friends of the Nation, The Development Institute, among others.

It is my greatest honour therefore to appreciate these institutions alongside and in equal measure fisher groups and the wider coastal communities we have been working assiduously with to attain our mission. The roles played by Women Shellfisher groups in West Africa (from Senegal to Nigeria), the likes of GNCFC, CAFGOAG and others. Continentally, our association with the Africa Union, AU-IBAR, AUDA-NEPAD and others have been very useful. Our international academic partners like CRC-URI, UBC, York University, University of Waterloo, ZMT, University of Liverpool, ANCORS-University of Wollongong have been immensely useful and deserve special mention. We could not have achieved the successes without the huge cooperation received from the Governments, Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the various countries of the sub-region.

Research Facilities/ Equipment

Working with all the groups of institutions mentioned above has paid off and the Centre can modestly boast of some equipment that aid its research activities. In other words, the Centre is in position to provide various services with these equipment as briefly explained. 

1. Geographic Information /Remote Sensing - (i) Drones. The Centre has UAVs like DJI Phantom IV for aerial mapping of coastal and inland environmental changes. (ii) Real Time Kinematic Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Handheld GPS.
2. Coastal Morphology and hydrodynamic Processes: (i) We map coastal topography with DJI Phantom IV RTK Drone and (ii) Stonex SH5A RTK GPS Surveying Equipment.  (iii) We use our UAV Hi-Boat BS12 drone for mapping Bathymetry/ water depths in both ocean and inland waters, (iv) We deploy Smart Sofas Buoys at various parts of the Ghanaian coast to intermittently collect wave parameters and the state of the ocean, (v) We also deploy Pressure Sensors for measuring water levels and surface temperature.
3. Microplastic work: (i) Alpha II ATR-FTIR, (ii) Laminar flow hood, (iii) PCR workstation, (iv) Stereomicroscope, (v) Crime-lite 2 Blue light, (vi) Vacuum pump, (v) Incubating shaker, (vi) Chest freezer, (vii) Refrigerator, (viii) Tablets, (ix) Magnetic stirrer
4. Wet Lab: (i) Plankton net, (ii) Plankton Rubber for Cultures, (iii) Digital flowmeter, (iv) Microscopes etc.
5. Fisheries: (i) Atomic absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS), (ii) Gas Chromatography Unit with accessories, (iii) Compound light Microscope, (iv) Ohaus Balance Ranger 7000, (v) Top Pan, 15Kg x 0.2g, DR 900 Colorimeter, (vi) Jenway 7315 UV/Visible Spectrophotometer, (vii) Oven 75 litres Genlab range of general-purpose ovens, (viii) Ekman Grab Sampler, (ix) Water Sampler Van Dorn Horizontal, complete with Rope and 500g messenger, (x) Secchi Disc, Horiba Water Quality Checkers etc.

Databases

Together with our partners, we have established and currently populating the Regional Oceans and Coastal data hub (https://rocdatahub.ucc.edu.gh/). Some datasets available as part of our research activities include, hydrodynamic data (waves) and morphological data (bathymetry), beach profiles, and aerial photographs from drones (https://oceandata.ucc.edu.gh).  Partners across all divides are invited to collaborate to make these data hubs a more useful tool for the sustainable management of the ocean and the coast of West Africa.

Outreach: Conference of Fisheries and Coastal Environment (CFCE)

CCM-ACECoR has a bi-annual international engagement in the form of the Conference of Fisheries and Coastal Environment (CFCE) dubbed the “Blue Economy Conference”. This conference brings together governments, donors, researchers, private organizations, fishers and fish processors and all institutions along the fisheries value chain and coastal environment experts to deliberate on the best strategies for sustainable management of the coastal environment in every other year. The conference has been held in 2017, 2019, 2023 in Accra. The next conference is slated for February, 2026 and will be held in Dar es Salam in Tanzania. With significant interest from the World Bank and the Africa Union, the Centre has scaled up the CFCE from being a Ghana-based conference to a regional one. I hereby invite all partners to collaborate with us on this activity.

Prudent Financial Management

One pertinent issue that has so far spurred our modest growth is the prudent financial management. We endeavor to comply with all financial management and regulatory provisions available to us institutionally, nationally and internationally. CCM-ACECoR’s prudent and value-for-money as well as result-oriented management of funds is enrooted in UCC’s Financial Management and Regulatory Policy. There is pre-auditing for every procurement to ensure that things being purchased are done in accordance with the pre-approved annual budget of the programme.

Staff Capacity

CCM-ACECoR are generally young, very hard working, dedicated and committed to achieving set goals. They are characteristically explorative, always ready to learn. They have the ability to usefully engage partners and take delight in meeting the needs of partners.

Challenges being faced by CCM-ACECoR

In spite of all the successes, the Centre is limited in some specialized robust field and laboratory equipment. The Centre desires to provide its students experiential field and ocean training. We have therefore been working dedicatedly toward acquiring a potable ocean vessel to enhance our research activities. We are working towards expanding our building infrastructure and facilities in the near future, when funds become available to include more specialized laboratories, physical laboratories for ocean processes simulation, more classrooms, a conference facility and above all, an accommodation facility for our august visitors. 

Given these needs, there is the urgent need to consolidate the gains that have been made so far through enhancing our strategic partnership and devising various plans to expand the activities of the Centre. This document provides strategic directions for the CCM-ACECoR’s operations under my tenure as the Acting Director.

1.2 My Vision

My vision for the Centre is: “To provide strategic leadership in promoting science-based cross-disciplinary research platform to inform policy, training and coastal community engagement toward sustainable Blue Economy initiatives and outcomes across Africa”.

I have proposed five (5) strategic focus in support of my vision. These include: (i) Enhancement of Institutional Governance and Procedures, (ii) Infrastructure Development and Technological Advancement, (iii) Strategic Partnerships, Grants Mobilisation and International Outlook, (iv) Advancing the frontiers of sustainable ocean management and build resilience through outreaches and engagements and (v) Fostering an Inclusive and Future-Ready Academic and Research Culture.

To you our partners, I wish to reiterate our commitment to continue working with you to achieve these strategic intentions. Together, we will push the frontiers for sustainable ocean management, advancing Africa’s Blue Economy to build resilience of coastal communities in Africa against the triple planetary crisis of biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change.