Over 100 participants from Nigeria, Togo, Niger, and Benin, plus observers from the West Africa sub-regional group (Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal) gathered in Cotonou to review the progress in the Nigeria sub-region since the June 2001 Dakar meeting and move forward on a sub-regional action plan.

The sub-regional action plan adopted at this seminar set "the end of 2004" as the deadline for eliminating lead in gasoline-fully a year in advance of the Dakar Declaration date-with an interim target of 0.15g/l in 2002. The conference moderators and country presentations, however, all emphasized that lead phase-out is but one part of a broader effort to reduce air pollution from motor vehicles in cities.