Roles and responsibilities in the West African Alliance
This document gives an overview of the organisational structure of the West African Alliance. It describes the different bodies that have been set up to operate the Alliance, their roles and responsibilities, and the parties involved in their operation. These include the secretariat, led by the coordinator, who is in charge of managing the Alliance; the steering committee, guiding the operations of the Alliance; a financial host partner and trustee to support the operations of the Alliance, and; a number of technical partners that provide technical assistance to the work of the Alliance. The document also describes the role of the member meeting, the national focal points, and the thematic working groups (Figure 1).
The financial host partner and trustee of the Alliance is BOAD with support of the UNFCCC/RCC Lomé unit.
The financial host partner and trustee manages all financial streams of the organisation. It is in charge of:
- Supporting the Alliance in fundraising and the financial management of the activities;
- Reporting to the donors on a regular basis, justifying expenses;
- Managing and disbursing the funds required for the implementation of the Alliance Action Plan;
- Coordinating, approving, and processing invoices, bookings and logistical expenses;
- Issuing and managing contracts and tracking sub-contractor’s obligations
- Supporting the secretariat in logistical matters (workshop organisation, member participation at international fora).
The secretariat is hosted by ENDA Energie including the Alliance Coordinator.
The secretariat comprises the Alliance coordinator, who leads the secretariat, and the secretariat officers. The secretariat manages the day-to-day operations of the Alliance, and supports the Alliance coordinator in his work as official representative of the Alliance. The responsibilities of the secretariat include:
● Coordination and Logistics
- Managing the implementation of the activities of the Alliance towards its goals
- Convening and organising Alliance workshops and member meetings (including agenda preparation, logistical preparation, leading the meetings);
- Organising and preparing meetings of the steering committee;
- Coordinating the Alliance thematic working groups activities;
- Coordinating the work of the technical partners;
- Coordinating the participation of the Alliance and its members at international fora;
- Member coordination and liaison;
- Partner coordination and liaison;
● Communication
- Developing and implementing the communication strategy of the Alliance (including maintaining the Alliance website and feeding other media outlets)
- Representing the Alliance at international fora
- Acting as knowledge manager, keeping stock and making available any information produced and supported by the Alliance
- Supporting the availability of communication platforms for members and thematic working groups
● Reporting
- Reporting on the status of implementation of activities during bi-weekly steering committee meetings
- Preparing meeting notes of steering committee meetings
- Preparing the reports of Alliance workshops and member meetings
- Organising the reporting by thematic working group chairs
- Preparing regular progress reports on the activities of the Alliance
● Strategic development
- Leading and enabling the strategic development and outreach of the Alliance;
Overseeing the legal set-up of the Alliance;
The technical partners provide technical assistance to support the implementation of the activities of the Alliance including delivering technical reports, providing in-country readiness support, facilitating the implementation of mitigation programmes, providing technical inputs to workshops of the Alliance and to the technical working groups. The work of the technical partners is coordinated and supported by the secretariat.
The technical partners are Climate Focus, AEE, AERA, Perspectives, and ENDA Energie. In the future, additional technical partners may be acknowledged by the Alliance.
The steering committee consists of the secretariat and coordinator of the Alliance, BOAD, RCC Lomé, BMU and the steering committee technical partner, Climate Focus.
The steering committee guides the strategic planning of the activities of the Alliance. Tasks of the steering committee include :
● Oversight of progress
o Regularly monitoring implementation of the activities of the Alliance towards its goals
● Strategic guidance
o Taking decisions on matters of strategic nature and any other matters that are put before it by the implementing entities
o Guiding the implementing entities of the Alliance in the implementation of activities
o Guiding the long-term development of the Alliance
● Advisory and support
o Informing the implementing entities about relevant developments
o Supporting outreach to partners
Through bi-weekly update calls, the members of the steering committee perform their tasks and stay closely involved in the implementation of the work of the secretariat. In addition, the steering committee comes together in two physical meetings per year. In its decision-making the steering committee is guided by the inputs received from the member meeting, to ensure that all activities of the Alliance are rooted in the needs of its members.
The member meeting consists of the representatives of the Alliance members.
Alliance members meet bi-annually in the member meeting. The member meeting serves to strengthen cooperation between the Alliance members, reveal member needs and to inform the strategic direction of the Alliance. The member meeting informs the decision-making in the steering committee and takes decisions that concern the legal structure of the Alliance.
Each country that has affiliated itself to the Alliance has designated an Alliance National Focal Point and an alternate. The focal points participate in the Member Meetings of the Alliance, and play a crucial role in connecting the work of the Alliance with domestic policy making and developments, translating the work at the sub-regional level to the member countries.
The thematic working groups consist of national focal points. Each working group is coordinated by a lead selected by national focal points of the Alliance.
The four thematic working groups (Carbon markets and pricing; climate finance; transparency; and technology transfer) form the core of the substance-related work of the Alliance. The main tasks of the working groups are:
- Managing internal communication of the TWGs through the modes of work (i.e. to organize coordination meetings of the TWGs back to back with other (Alliance) events, manage an email distribution list);
- Acting as focal point for information and to share all information (technical papers, specific reports, upcoming events, etc.) relevant to their subject matters with members of the TWGs;
- Identifying key topics that need to be further explored by the Alliance in order to improve country readiness for Article 6 implementation;
- Developing and updating on a bi-annual basis the working plan for the TWGs in consultation with its members;
- Feeding the inputs from the Alliance in their subject matters into the UNFCCC negotiations and to represent the Alliance at relevant events;
- Participating in ongoing efforts of the Alliance to raise funding and mobilise resources;
- Working closely with Alliance national representative, especially regarding the implementation of in-country readiness programmes.
The thematic working groups report to the Alliance member meeting.