Africa’s Great Green Wall project may lose momentum

Significance

The African Union (AU) project also aims to create jobs, reduce conflict, improve food security and reduce migration along the 8,000-kilometre 'wall'. In 2020, the UN said only 4% of the target land area had been planted with trees since the project's inception in 2007. Critics say the GGW reflects an inaccurate diagnosis of the climate and land use problems affecting the Sahelian region, and offers poor remedies.

Impacts

• Part of the funding for the GGW is premised on the idea that it will reduce migration, but there is no evidence that this will happen.
• Conservation efforts may generate local backlash from farmers, herders and hunters.
• The GGW focuses on agriculture and has less to say about the growing crisis in Sahelian pastoralism.