Green Wall Initiative

The Great Green Wall Initiative is one of Africa’s most ambitious environmental and development projects. It aims to combat desertification, land degradation, and climate change by creating a massive belt of greenery across the continent.

What is the Great Green Wall?
The Great Green Wall is a project to grow an 8,000 km long and 15 km wide stretch of trees and vegetation across Africa’s Sahel region—the semi-arid belt just south of the Sahara Desert. The idea is to restore degraded land, stop the desert from advancing, and improve livelihoods for millions.

Where is it being implemented?
The wall stretches across 11 core countries, including:

Senegal

Mauritania

Mali

Burkina Faso

Niger

Nigeria

Chad

Sudan

Eritrea

Ethiopia

Djibouti

More than 20 African countries are now involved, and the initiative has support from the African Union, UN agencies, and international partners like the World Bank, EU, and African Development Bank.

Origins and Goals
Launched in 2007 by the African Union

Inspired by earlier ideas dating back to the 1970s to stop the spread of the Sahara

Evolved from a simple tree-planting idea into a broader land restoration and development program

Main Goals by 2030:
Restore 100 million hectares of degraded land

Sequester 250 million tons of carbon

Create 10 million green jobs

Why is it needed?
The Sahel region faces some of the toughest environmental and social challenges:

Desertification: Expanding deserts and degraded soil reduce farm productivity.

Climate change: Hotter temperatures and erratic rainfall make life harder for farmers and herders.

Poverty and conflict: Environmental stress contributes to migration, food insecurity, and even conflict.

The Great Green Wall is designed to tackle all of these issues simultaneously.

What does it involve?
This isn’t just about planting trees. It’s a multi-pronged approach:

Agroforestry: Mixing trees with crops and livestock

Water harvesting: Building systems to capture and store rainwater

Sustainable land management: Using techniques to restore soil fertility

Community empowerment: Engaging local people in planning and labor

Progress So Far
As of the latest updates:

Around 18 million hectares have been restored

Countries like Senegal, Ethiopia, and Niger have made strong progress

Senegal, for example, has planted over 12 million trees

But the project has faced challenges:

Funding gaps

Political instability in some regions

Poor coordination and monitoring

In response, a revamp was launched in 2021—called the Great Green Wall Accelerator—with a pledge of over $14 billion in new funding from international partners to speed up progress.

Why it matters
The Great Green Wall is:

Environmental defense: It stops land degradation and fights climate change.

Economic engine: It supports sustainable agriculture and job creation.

Social stabilizer: It offers hope and opportunity in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions.

In Summary
The Great Green Wall Initiative is more than a line of trees—it’s a bold, continent-wide movement to restore land, boost resilience, and create a greener, more sustainable future for Africa. While progress is uneven, the vision remains powerful: turn the Sahel into a zone of growth instead of decline.

Source : https://thinklandscape.globallandscapesforum.org/73602/southern-africa-great-green-wall/