Africa’s Great Green Wall
Credits: UN Water: The Great Green Wall
A guest blog from Sarah Gavioli of Istituto Analisi Relazioni Internationali ‘IARI’ in Italy.
One of the most ambitious environmental projects of our time is without any doubt the Great Green Wall (‘GGW’) initiative. It is not just another “green project” that aims to achieve some local benefits. It involves the future of Africa and its population.
The Green Wall’s origins date back to the 1970s, when vast swathes of fertile land in the Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert began to degrade critically. There were several reasons for this. The soil was not only affected by climate change impact but also land exploitation and demographic growth contributed to its barenness. Land degradation pushed people to move away in order to escape water and food scarcities. The unemployment rate rose dramatically, and the communities started to be involved in local conflicts, which broke out through competition for the remaining resources.
Land degradation means the
“reduction or loss of the biological or
economic productivity and complexity
of land”. It involves a reduction in food production and water storage, the loss of fertile soils and biodiversity.
Credit :Exploring-Africa.com
It was clear that a short-term solution was not enough for facing such huge challenges. In 2007, the African Union launched the initiative intending to improve the lives of 100 million people in the Sahel region from Senegal in the West to Djibouti in the East of Africa. Today, this Pan-African movement involves more than 20 countries.
The Great Green Wall is an environmental and social project, whose aspiration is to grow an 8,000 kilometres belt of trees across the entire width of Africa.
Three key features are:
The increasing involvement of stakeholders from the local to the international level - not forgetting the considerable workforce that every day operate actively to achieve the set goals. Nowadays, the project is supported by many donors, among which the World Bank (WB), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and France play a significant role. Over 14 billion dollars have been mobilized to restore degrading land, save biological diversity as well as create green jobs and build the resilience of the Sahelian people.
Well-defined steps and measurable goals that match up to the 2030 UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Great Green Wall promotes 15 of the 17 Global Goals that focus on ending poverty, urgently addressing climate change and ending inequalities. Goal 15 is especially relevant for the UNCCD as it urges the countries to “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems”. This represents the core of the project since there is no life without a healthy and productive land.
A growing awareness of its global reach should be promoted , expressing the cultural and social aims of the Great Green Wall.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) states that these interventions need supportive policies; good management; adequate technical, operational and financial capacities; incentives for communities to sustain their activities; and constant monitoring and learning. But first of all, “restoration must be understood, planned and tackled along the entire value chain, from land and seed to end products and markets”. One of the actions required for the success of the project is an information system to support baseline assessments, define interventions, monitor progress, and promote adaptive management. This can be difficult to achieve in areas where data is hard to collect and local populations lack access to easy to use technology. New crops and forestry need water resources to be irrigated; resources that a soil, already threatened by continuous drought, simply does not have. Therefore, water management is crucial for carrying out the initiative, and other funds may be needed to build, for instance, an excellent system of water recycling or a solar-powered irrigation system.
The Great Green Wall has the potential to improve the quality of life of millions of people in the Sahel region, providing them with a job and a reason to stay. It is also a successful example of cooperation between countries, which have to face the same climate change consequences.
For further information about the Great Green Wall :
https://www.greatgreenwall.org/
https://ec.europa.eu/international-partnerships/programmes/growing-great-green-wall-ggw_en