The Great Green Wall is a unique initiative designed to help people and natural environments cope with the growing impacts of the climate emergency and degradation of vital ecosystems, and to keep the Sahara Desert from encroaching further into one of the world’s poorest regions.

Launched by the African Union in 2007, the Great Green Wall (GGW) has grown from an ambitious tree-planting drive into a comprehensive rural development initiative. The goal has grown from planting a wall of trees to transforming millions of lives by creating a mosaic of green, productive landscapes in 11 countries. To date, almost 18 million hectares of degraded land have been restored. By 2030, the Great Green Wall aims to restore 100 million hectares of land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million jobs. The wall ensures food and water security, provides habitats for wild plants and animals, and a reason for people to stay in a region plagued by drought and poverty. 

The initiative has been selected among the first ten World Restoration Flagships of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem restoration. The flagships are inspiring examples of how landscape-scale restoration can address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste.  

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel (APGMVSS), the Great Green Wall national agencies of Burkina Faso and the Niger are receiving financial assistance from the Multi-Donor Fund of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to support the restoration and protection of livelihoods in the Great Green Wall areas of Burkina Faso and the Niger, through The Great Green Wall for Ecosystem Restoration and Peace Flagship (GGW Flagship). 

The official launch of national activities in Burkina Faso took place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on 4–7 March 2024. The event brought together over 50 participants from the local and regional authorities involved in the flagship project, as well as national partners. The launch workshop provided an opportunity to share lessons learned from previous projects, present the project document and institutional set-up to all stakeholders, plan the activities to be implemented locally, and ensure communication and visibility around the project. The workshop is a meeting to engage key players in the project and to collectively plan the actions to be implemented. 

The initiative supports green entrepreneurs to implement sustainable restoration investments and offers multiple benefits to the most vulnerable communities, reinforces the decentralization process already under way in Burkina Faso and implements small grants to support producer groups in line with restoration activities. The approach developed could be extended to neighbouring countries, offering hope of a better future at a time when conflict and insecurity are adding to the pressures on communities. 

The implementation of the flagship involves a number of different stakeholder groups, namely, direct beneficiaries, such as local authorities and communities; support organizations, such as the Great Green Wall national agencies, decentralized government services, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations and service providers; and technical and financial support partners, such as FAO through the Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM), UNEP and the UNCCD-supported Great Green Wall Accelerator.          

Report Link: Fleuron grande muraille verte : un nouveau projet pour restaurer les terres dégradées

Nelly Bourlion (FAO)