Upon completion of the GEF MSP Project in Sub-Sahara Africa, which was executed by ACOPS, the Portfolio of Project Proposals developed during Phase II of the project was integrated into the Marine and Coastal Component of the Environment Initiative of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Since then, ACOPS has begun to cooperate, at the request of the Government of Kenya,  with the newly established NEPAD Coastal and Marine Secretariat (CosMar), based in Nairobi, Kenya. This was result of a meeting which the Environmental Component of NEPAD, headed by President Wade of Senegal, organised in Dakar in October 2003 in which ACOPS also participated.

The overall objective of the NEPAD Coastal and Marine Secretariat (COSMAR) is to contribute to the reversal of the trend of marine and coastal environmental degradation that contributes to, and heightens, poverty in Africa. The activities of the COSMAR will be executed in close collaboration with the Regional Co-ordinating Units (RCUs) of the Abidjan and Nairobi conventions, in accordance with the decisions taken in the Dakar meeting of October 2002, as well as other Regional Seas programmes involving African countries. The Secretariat will focus its work on coordination and resource mobilization efforts and on identifying and establishing linkages, partnerships and synergies at all levels. The Secretariat will thus act as a facilitator at the sub-regional and regional levels, and contribute towards ensuring that good practices are replicated, lessons learnt and applied, and pilot projects followed up.