The Great Green Wall is one of the biggest climate action projects in the world, stretching across Africa with the aim of creating the largest ‘living structure’ on Earth. We check in on its progress.

The Sahel is a vast sweep of land, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical savannas in the south. It is an area with huge potential and abundant human and natural resources, yet it is also an area with a lot of environmental and political challenges.

Enter the Great Green Wall of Africa, the world’s most ambitious reforestation project, which it is hoped can rejuvenate the economies along its 7,500km route. Conceived by the African Union in 2007, and with each national government leading its own efforts, it is scheduled to be completed by 2030. Once completed, it will be the largest living structure on Earth, three times the size of the Great Barrier Reef. The ‘wall’ is epic in scale, spanning from Djibouti in the east to Senegal in the west; passing through Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Burkino Faso, Mali and Mauritania, before reaching the Atlantic coast.

The details of the Great Green Wall, are as impressive as its scale: it will consist of a 15km-wide vegetation barrier, focused on natural vegetation regeneration and water conservation, with the aim of halting desertification, biodiversity loss and food insecurity. The project is focused on three areas: forestry and agriculture (everything from land restoration to agroforestry); water (construction of boreholes, and irrigation systems); and soil (terraces, dune fixing and wind and fire breaks).

African Desertification

The project is also as vital as it is ambitious; Desertification is a huge issue in Africa, with around 45% of the continent most affected by it. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), desertification is caused by a variety of factors, including “water scarcity and irregular precipitation, and critical demographic issues such as poverty, food insecurity and over-exploitation of natural resources due to unsustainable land use practices.”

The Great Green Wall then, is a symbol of hope for the Sahel; not just a climate action project, but a biodiversity project, an infrastructure project, a jobs creating project, and a long-term investment in the economy of the region. It is a prime example of a win-win-win-win-win initiative. “The ambition is to generate restoration of 100 million hectares of degraded land, 250 million tons of carbon store and 10 million jobs created in rural areas, by 2030,” the UNCCD says.

So far progress has been steady, with the Great Green Wall Implementation Status and Way Ahead to 2030 report, the project’s first comprehensive status report, stating last year that “close to 18 million hectares of land has been restored, over 350,000 jobs have been created and around $90 million in revenues has been generated from 2007 to 2018 through the GGW activities in the Sahel Region.”

Despite this progress, there’s a lot more to do, and a number of challenges remain. “There are a variety of governance-related issues,” the UNCCD says. “These include political instability, regional conflicts, [challenges around] monitoring and tracking progress as well as the high population growth rate which is increasing demand for food and pressure to gain access to other natural resources.”

Sahel Supports

Another issue relates to funding, unsurprising given the scale of the project. “It will require about $33 billion to complete the Great Green Wall,” the UNCCD says, “and most of the participating countries have challenges around establishing the required governance and project structures to access, manage and report on finance flows.”

These issues require “high level political support at the national level,” the UNCCD adds, in order to maintain the structures needed to ensure the Great Green Wall is completed. The urgency of the project is illustrated by the millions of those living in the Sahel – particularly rural youth – who face uncertain futures, due to the lack of decent rural jobs, and the loss of livelihoods due to land degradation and the resulting falling yields.

Yet there is “light at the end of the tunnel” according to the UNCCD, with progress of 18% projected for 2021, and “major support from world leaders from France and Canada, as well as the World Bank and the European Development Bank, while private sector made funding commitments at the One Planet Summit in January.

Ambitious projects are needed in the climate action space, and there are few more ambitious than the Great Green Wall, a project that once completed will be a living testament to the power of resilience, optimism and collective climate action.