New $78 Million Initiative Launched to Restore Land and Improve Livelihoods Across Great Green Wall Countries
A new $78 million program has been launched to restore 270,000 hectares of degraded land and improve the livelihoods of five million people across nine countries of the Great Green Wall. This initiative, supported by funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implementation assistance from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), aims to regenerate one of the world's most climate-vulnerable regions. The participating countries span from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa and include Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. UNEP will oversee eight of the ten projects, with the West African Development Bank (BOAD) implementing the remaining two. The program, named 'Transformation Approach to Large Scale Investment in Support of the Implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative,' addresses interconnected challenges such as environmental stress, food insecurity, and conflict, which have displaced over 4 million people in the region.