The AWA consortium includes ten (10) countries (15 including associated partners) and above forty (40) laboratories. Is atrilateral German-French-African Research initiative in Sub-Sahara Africa. Joint proposals by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF/Germany) and the IRD (AIRD/France) under the patronage of the French Ministry for Higher Education and Research (MESR) and Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MAEE). It is locally implemented by the SRFC Sub Regional Fisheries Commission (Dakar Senegal). The principal goal of the AWA project is to permit members States of Sub Regional Fisheries Commission to implement sustainable fisheries management systems in marine environment with biological, economics and socials plans. The specific objectives are (1) Strengthening management mechanism fisheries of States members of SRFC; (2) Outstanding importance in the broader scientific context of the analysis of global climate change and of paramount relevance of their impacts on fisheries resources for West Africa; (3) Capacity building students, with institutes researchers and West Africans universities. The long term goal of the strategic partnership is to develop an ocean observation and modeling platform able to monitor, simulate and forecast some of the most important parameters driving the dynamics of oceanic ecosystems (temperatures, sea level, chlorophyll and oxygen levels), and the key resources for marine life off continental West Africa. The project calls for a multidisciplinary approach comprising marine and fisheries ecology, biogeochemistry, physical oceanography, climate research, economy and earth observation data from space. The strategic approach will be using the time series analyses, dedicated process studies and experiments at sea, as well as applying various statistical and numerical modeling approaches to new and existing monitoring data in order to study the seasonal to long term dynamics of West Africa marine ecosystems, and the forces driving them.
