Six west African nations on Tuesday agreed to delineate their maritime boundaries in what are thought to be oil-and-gas rich Atlantic coastal waters. The accord, overseen by Norway, a major energy producer, seeks to allow Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Mauritania and Senegal to share the huge ocean area. Norway will help the costly work of mapping the continental shelf.
"We seek to guarantee that the African countries control the resources in their own maritime zones, something that would represent an important contribution to fighting poverty," Norway's environment and international development minister, Erik Solheim, said.
Solheim was at UN headquarters in New York for a summit on ending world poverty. "Establishing the limits of the continental shelf is crucial because decides who can exploit resources like oil and gas," he said. Cape Verde's foreign minister, Jose Brito, praised what he said was an example of co-operation on a complex and "not a pacific issue." Solheim said that good management of hydrocarbon resources could change the future for the African countries, as it had done for his own country. "Norway, which was one of the poorest in Europe, became one of the richest in the world," he said.
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