Progress accelerated but targeted action needed to realize Africa’s Great Green Wall ambition

Bonn, 27 March 2023  — Two years on since the One Planet Summit, 80 percent of the US$19 billion pledged towards the Great Green Wall Accelerator has been programmed across the 11 African nations that are part of the initiative. However, continued political leadership and country ownership, targeted action at all levels, and strengthened institutional arrangements are required to realize the vision of this Africa-led movement.

These findings come from the new analysis of the Great Green Wall Accelerator, commissioned by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which takes stock of the progress achieved since 2021 and identifies a series of recommendations for action. The report comes ahead of a Great Green Wall Initiative countries and partners’ consultations on 30 March 2023 under Nigeria’s rotating chairmanship of the Initiative.

“The Great Green Wall is one of the most inspiring and ambitious examples of land restoration in the world. It is creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across Africa, creating jobs, protecting the climate, and improving livelihoods,” UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw said.

“Implementing such a large and complex programme in the Sahel, one of the harshest regions on Earth is no easy task. The fact that the Sahel region is inflicted with political, social, and environmental challenges, all of which are interconnected, certainly complicates operations on the ground but makes intervention even more critical,” he added.

In the two years since the One Planet Summit, the Great Green Wall Accelerator helped identify and match funding for 150 projects covering all countries that are part of the Great Green Wall — from Senegal to Djibouti.

National Great Green Wall coalitions have been established in 9 out of 11 countries, bringing together governments, international donors, the private sector, and civil society to chart the way forward for implementation in countries.

Vast tracts of land along the Great Green Wall have already been restored by local communities. The Great Green Wall Accelerator has put in place a robust quality assurance and monitoring framework, which will be made available as a digital platform for countries to keep track of progress on the ground.

Thus far, US$ 2.5 billion of the funding pledged at the One Planet Summit has been disbursed, with the remaining US$17.5 billion expected by the end of 2025. However, this still falls short of the US$33 billion that is needed to achieve the Great Green Wall vision to restore 100 million hectares of degraded lands by 2030 and create 10 million jobs in a region marked by unemployment and migration.

The Accelerator has been extremely proactive and has provided a high level of expertise in the areas it has addressed, namely, governance and advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, and resource mobilization, concludes the Independent Review of the Great Green Wall Accelerator completed at the end of February 2023.

The report also identified weaknesses in the system, for instance, institutional weaknesses notably due to insufficient financial and human resources as well as political support for the regional and national agencies for the Great Green Wall. This situation may put at risk the sustainability of the achievements of the Accelerator in the longer term.

“As a long-term partner of the Great Green Wall Initiative, the UNCCD calls on all governments and partners to intensify their support to ensure that the high-level political leadership of this Africa’s flagship initiative translates into country ownership and tangible results on the ground. For this, countries need to strengthen regional and national institutional structures to ensure they are fit for purpose, and accelerate action at all levels in support of the Great Green Wall,” UNCCD Executive Secretary Thiaw concluded.

For more information, please contact:

UNCCD Press Office: press [at] unccd.int (press[at]unccd[dot]int)

Notes to Editors

The full Independent Review of the Great Green Wall Accelerator report is available here.

The report summary is available in English and French.

More information about the UNCCD evaluation office is found here: https://www.unccd.int/convention/evaluation-office.

About the Great Green Wall

The Great Green Wall is an African-led movement with an ambition to grow an 8,000 km natural wonder of the world across the entire width of the continent. By 2030, the Great Green Wall aims to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon, and create 10 million jobs in rural areas. Vast tracts of land along the Great Green Wall have already been restored by local communities. More than just a tree-planting initiative, the Great Green Wall Initiative is a comprehensive integrated ecosystem management and rural development programme to combat land degradation and desertification, climate change, biodiversity loss, and poverty and food insecurity. A “Great Green Wall Accelerator” was launched during the One Planet Summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris in January 2021. The Summit secured US$19 billion in funding commitments to boost the implementation of the initiative in the 11 countries by supporting the emergence of multi-stakeholders’ initiatives designed in countries, and to better valorise the local actions already carried out in the field in support of the objectives of the Great Green Wall. https://thegreatgreenwall.org/

About UNCCD

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the global vision and voice for land. We unite governments, scientists, policymakers, the private sector, and communities around a shared vision and global action to restore and manage the world’s land for the sustainability of humanity and the planet. Much more than an international treaty signed by 197 parties, UNCCD is a multilateral commitment to mitigating today’s impacts of land degradation and advancing tomorrow’s land stewardship to provide food, water, shelter, and economic opportunity to all people in an equitable and inclusive manner. https://www.unccd.int/