This global restoration flagship is part of the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahara and the Sahel, an African-led flagship initiative that supports an integrated ecosystem management approach, aiming at a mosaic of different land use and vegetation systems, including sustainable dryland management, natural vegetation regeneration and water conservation measures. 

The aim of this flagship is to support the restoration and protection of livelihoods in areas of the Great Green Wall, where environmental degradation and acute food insecurity are closely linked, caused and exacerbated by environmental degradation, climate change and the crisis in the central Sahel. The target area of the flagship, a transboundary landscape between Burkina Faso and Niger, is both a degradation hotspot and a conflict zone. 

In these areas, restoration is only possible thanks to strong decentralized systems already in place in the target countries, benefiting from appropriate capacity building and means to support local communities in the most difficult times. Local authorities and decentralized technical services of the State will be strengthened. Local civil society organizations will be involved to ensure the most vulnerable are engaged in the process. Young people will be encouraged to take an interest in the economic opportunities linked to the protection and restoration of land as well as the associated value chains which can find growing markets in the city and outside. The humanitarian assistance provided will be adapted to integrate restoration and land management. In this way, the vicious circle can be transformed into a virtuous circle. 

Based on already successful pilot ecosystem restoration initiatives in Burkina Faso and Niger, the GGW flagship is divided into three components to strengthen local communities who will be the only ones left in the event of conflict and who will be able to coordinate long-term restoration activities.  

The first component focuses on sensitizing local and national actors on the benefits of restoration with the aim of supporting the integration of green activities into national and local development and investment plans.  

The second component provides tools for local communities to implement and monitor restoration activities as part of their communal development, and investment plans to increase resilience, support local green entrepreneurship for restoration and to create links with humanitarian programmes for sustainability and peacebuilding.    

Finally, the third component promotes knowledge management and engagement of the private sector, public sector and civil society in ecosystem restoration under the GGW Accelerator to actively support long-term restoration.  

Thanks to the GGW Accelerator and the regional approach through the coordination of the Pan-African Great Green Wall Agency, this flagship has a strong potential to be extended to other regions of the GGW facing the same difficulties. 

Links: Video of GGW flagship by the decade,  FFEM video 

Leading and partner organizations 

At the local level:

At the regional level:

• The Pan-African Agency for the Great Green Wall (PA GGW).