Great Green Wall receives over $14 billion to regreen the Sahel — France, World Bank listed among donors
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Bonn/Paris/Canadian-Media: The ambitious Great Green Wall for the Sahel and Sahara Initiative (GGW) has received at least 14.326 billion US dollars in new funding. The funding will fast track efforts to restore degrading land, save biological diversity as well as create green jobs, and build the resilience of the Sahelian people, UNCCD reports said.
Emmanuel Macron, President of France, made the announcement at the just concluded One Planet Summit for Biodiversity co-organized by France, the United Nations, and World Bank.
The GGW snakes along the southern margin of Africa’s the Sahara Desert running from the Atlantic coast to the Red Sea. The Great Green Wall Accelerator makes up 30 percent of 33 billion United States Dollars needed to achieve the Great Green Wall’s ambitions for the year 2030.
Mohamed Cheikh El-Ghazouani, President of Mauritania and current chair of the Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall, welcomed the Accelerator program on behalf of the region.
“We welcome the announcement of the Great Green Wall Accelerator Initiative, whose objective is to release an initial contribution over the period 2021–2025, to give effect to the commitments of the financial partners in a coordinated framework,” said Ghazouani.
“The mobilization of this additional funding through an innovative approach will certainly contribute to the achievement of the Great Green Wall goals, which aim by 2030, at the restoration of 100 million hectares of degraded land and the creation of 10 million green jobs…. This initiative will certainly facilitate the alignment of our partners’ interventions, in response to the concerns raised by our Ministers of Environment at the last Great Green Wall Conference,” said Ghazouani.
Ghazouani stressed that it would “enable our countries, in accessing the necessary funds, to increase local investments within the framework of the five pillars adopted and to strengthen the capacities of the national agencies of…
