This guide draws inspiration from the impressive volume Sharing Power, published by the IUCN/CEESP and IIED. The guide provides what we hope to be a convenient synthesis of the main phases of a shared-governance process for Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in West Africa. Among the key actors we are hoping to engage are civil servants in charge of managing MPAs, members of concerned communities and local groups and partners involved with MPAs, such as professionals working for environmental, humanitarian or sustainable development projects. This guide is intended to be a compact reference tool that enables users to quickly find their way around the different stages in the shared governance process and to assimilate or review the concepts and phases in order to render them operational in fair and effective ways. To remain as practical as possible, some of the inserts and illustrations in this guide are based on concrete examples from West Africa.