Green Wall Accelerator
Coordination. Monitoring. Action
On 11 January 2021, during the One Planet Summit, President Emmanuel Macron of France and other world leaders announced the launch of the Great Green Wall Accelerator and pledged USD 14.3 billion in new funding.
The Great Green Wall Accelerator will be coordinated through the Pan Africa Agency for the Great Green Wall (PAAGGW) with support from UNCCD. It aims to:
- facilitate collaboration among donors and stakeholders involved in the Great Green Wall Initiative
- help all actors to better coordinate, monitor, and measure the impact of their actions
To date, multilateral and bilateral organizations have raised more than USD 19 billion for this initiative.
Why do we need a Great Green Wall Accelerator?
The Great Green Wall Initiative has evolved from its initial focus on tree planting towards a comprehensive rural development initiative that aims to transform the lives of those living in the Sahel by creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across 11 countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan).
Much progress has been achieved, with almost 18 million hectares of degraded land restored and 350,000 jobs created across the Great Green Wall countries. However, a recent Landmark Report on the implementation status of the Great Green Wall highlighted the following challenges:
- a lack of consideration in national environmental priorities
- weak organizational structures and processes for implementation
- a lack of mainstreaming of environmental change and action into the respective sector strategies, policies, and action plans
- insufficient coordination, exchange, and flow of information at the regional and national levels
The report estimates that at least USD 33 billion will be required in the next decade to achieve the ambitions of the Great Green Wall by 2030, to:
- restore 100 million hectares of degraded land
- sequester 250 million tons of carbon
- create 10 million green jobs in rural areas
To address these challenges and funding gaps, the GGW Accelerator will consolidate the progress made to date and support and scale the ongoing efforts of the Great Green Wall and its 2030 ambitions. The Accelerator will monitor and promote investments towards five pillars:
- Pillar 1: Investment in small and medium-sized farms and strengthening of value chains, local markets, organization of exports
- Pillar 2: Land restoration and sustainable management of ecosystems
- Pillar 3: Climate-resilient infrastructures and access to renewable energy
- Pillar 4: Favourable economic and institutional framework for effective governance, sustainability, stability, and security
- Pillar 5: Capacity building
The Accelerator is building capacities to monitor and track progress
The Accelerator will provide a comprehensive mapping of the available funding and monitor and evaluate the impact of projects. It will ensure tracking of progress towards achieving the Great Green Wall’s goals by 2030. The UNCCD will support the Pan African Agency of the Great Green Wall to track progress and ensure more coordinated support between and among the GGW member states.
The Accelerator will support countries participating in the initiative, so they can:
- adopt a more comprehensive approach to rural development
- improve the production systems that underpin livelihoods of smallholder farmers and pastoralist communities to increase food security, create jobs, boost the local economy.
- overcome systemic challenges of land degradation as well as the adverse effects of climate change, in an integrated and holistic manner to achieve the long-term sustainability of the entire Sahel region
The Great Green Wall Accelerator will play a crucial role in the Sahel by scaling up efforts to build the resilience of rural communities, smallholder farmers, and agri-businesses to environmental degradation and climate change impacts. The Accelerator will ensure that the financial commitments pledged at the One Planet Summit help provide solutions to the challenges slowing down progress, by mobilizing resources and capacities to carry out the following activities until 2025:
2021: Design a GGW Online Platform for monitoring, tracking, and connecting financing flows with project needs
2021 – 2022: Support GGW countries in establishing enhanced monitoring and reporting systems
2021 – 2023: Track implementation progress in beneficiary countries against the GGW results targets
2023 – 2024: Transfer of Accelerator unit to the Pan African Agency
2025: Review and evaluate the impact of Accelerator investments and progress made towards the 2030 GGW ambition
How our partners are supporting the Great Green Wall Accelerator
