By Elsie Appiah-Osei
Accra, Sept 21—Madam Hadja Mémounatou Ibrahima, Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, on Monday called on Members of Parliament (MPs) to move beyond statistics and confront the human cost of climate disruption in West Africa.
Speaking at the Second Parliamentary Seminar of the Sixth Legislature in Accra, she urged MPs to confront the human cost of climate change.
The ECOWAS Parliament, also known as the Community Parliament, is the legislative arm of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
It serves as a forum for dialogue, consultation, and consensus for the people of West Africa to promote regional integration.
The seven-day seminar, which is on the theme “Climate Change as a Driver of Environmental Degradation, Population Displacement and Growing Insecurity in the ECOWAS Region”, is scheduled for Monday, September 21, to Sunday, September 27, 2026.
Madam Mémounatou Ibrahima, however, framed the theme of the seminar as a profoundly human question, not just an environmental one.
“Climate disruption can no longer be measured only in degrees, statistics or projections. It is read in land that yields less, in coastlines that retreat, in flooded neighbourhoods, in families losing their livelihoods, and in communities forced to relocate,” she stated.
“Behind the climate question lies a profoundly human one: how do we protect the living conditions, dignity and security of our populations when their environment is changing faster than their capacity to adapt to it?”
She urged parliamentarians to blend technical expertise with lived realities from their constituencies to produce useful proposals.
“Our responsibility during this seminar will be precisely to connect these realities, not to restate here what we already know, but to better understand what is at stake in our territories and to consider the most appropriate responses,” she added.
The Second Parliamentary Seminar of 2026, which brings together ECOWAS MPs in Accra to deliberate on climate resilience, will have a joint solemn opening of the extraordinary session on Tuesday, September 22.
“Tomorrow we will have time for solemnity. Today, let us choose substance, listening and work,” the Speaker said.
She explained that the joint solemn opening of the extraordinary session and the seminar, originally scheduled for Monday, September 21, will now take place on Tuesday, September 22. “But she said this should not diminish the importance of getting straight to work,” she added.
The Speaker also used the occasion to honour Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first prime minister and then the president of Ghana, from 1957 until 1966, and Ghana for remembering him with Founder’s Day.
“The 21st of September carries special resonance in Ghana… we cannot let this occasion pass without recalling the man whose fight for Ghana’s independence was inseparable from a far greater ambition: that of a free, united Africa,” she said.
She therefore invited MPs and guests to observe a minute of silence in memory of the late President.
GNA
Edited by Kenneth Odeng Adade
Reporter: Elsie Appiah-Osei, GNA
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