Abidjan Convention- Abou Bamba

This document summarises a technical workshop held in Geneva, Switzerland (30 June–2 July 2014) under the Abidjan Convention on selecting indicators to assess the state of regional seas. It reviews assessment and reporting instruments, including State of the Coast reports, State of Marine Environment assessments, the World Ocean Assessment for South Atlantic regions, the CCLME geo-referenced database and mapping work, and the Convention’s national reporting format. It identifies limitations in existing coastal reporting, particularly weak indicator support and limited usefulness for decision making, and emphasises the need for standardised yet regionally relevant indicators, stronger links to decision processes, capacity building, and integration with existing marine and coastal data initiatives.