Tunis based Sahara and Sahel Observatory OSS has said that international scientific and political community mobilization around sustainable land management, climate change adaptation and natural resource governance in Africa, is a key element of the new partnership (COPAR) signed today, October 13, 2023, between the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) and the French Development Agency (AFD).
The Sahara and Sahel Observatory OSS is an international scope organization with an African vocation which was created in 1992 and based in Tunis since 2000. The OSS initiates and facilitates partnerships on common challenges related to the management of shared water resources, the implementation of international agreements on desertification, biodiversity and climate change in Africa.
This initiative aims to promote high-level advocacy on these issues. In this regard, awareness tools will be produced and disseminated and major milestones will be organized, such as international meetings and side-events that will be held during the various COPs, thus strengthening the magnitude of this collaboration.
In his speech, Mr. Nabil Ben Khatra, OSS Executive Secretary, reaffirmed the Organization’s commitment to keep working on the mobilization of the international community around the continent’s issues, to bring to light the relevance of the solution-driven approaches and to contribute to their integration in public policies.
Mr. Yazid Safir, Director of the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) office in Tunisia, expressed his determination to place the collaboration between the two institutions within a global framework of partnership, in order to consolidate joint action, for an ever more positive impact on the entire African continent.
The partnership with AFD goes far beyond COPAR, through a multitude of joint initiatives, in line with OSS’s areas of intervention relating to biodiversity, water, land and climate.
Today, the OSS has 33 member countries (26 African countries and 7 non-African countries), 12 member organizations representing West, East and North Africa, UN organizations including 3 non-governmental organizations.