New funding of more than $14bn pledged for planting across almost a dozen countries in region bordering Sahara.
The ambitious initiative known as the Great Green Wall received a boost this week with a pledge of $14.3bn in new funding from the African Development Bank, France and the World Bank to plant an 8,000km long and 15km wide mosaic of trees, grasslands, vegetation and plants across the Sahel, the arid savannah on the southern edge of the Sahara

The aim of the project first envisioned in 2005 was to restore the lands suffering from degradation and desertification, and to help the region’s inhabitants produce adequate food, create jobs and to promote peace.

Drought and water scarcity is an acute problem in the Sahel, and most of the dozen or so countries it spans have tried a variety of water conservation measures, such as watershed management, drilling of bore holes and water harvesting techniques.

The Green Wall project had only covered 4 per cent of its target area, according to a UN report last year, and looked well short of achieving its target date of 2030, before the latest funding injection. The funds are about 40 per cent of the estimated $33bn needed to meet its goals by the end of the decade.

Read further from the source above