The West Africa Regional Fisheries Program (WARFP) which is funded by the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank is designed to assist countries to address these constraints by providing support to collaborate to (i) strengthen the governance of the use of the marine fish resources so that they recover to much more environmentally sustainable and economically profitable levels, while at the same time (ii) invest where needed to increase the portion of the value of these resources that is captured locally within the region. The overall objective is to sustainably increase the overall wealth generated by the exploitation of the marine fisheries resources of West Africa, and the proportion of that wealth captured by West African countries. The program will cover nine countries, which include: Cabo Verde, Liberia, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Sierra Leone. As of January 2016, a total of eight countries have participated in the WARFP: Cabo Verde, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana. Potential participation of Cote d’Ivoire and Gambia is under discussion.
