admin | June 4, 2026
The Great Green Wall snakes the Sahel region from Senegal to Djibouti. Launched in 2007 by the African Union, the Great Green Wall initiative aims to restore the continent’s degraded landscapes and transform millions of lives in the Sahel. This ambitious project is being implemented across 22 African countries and will revitalize thousands of communities across the continent.
The goal is to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, sequester 250 million tons of carbon, and create 10 million green jobs by 2030. The initiative currently covers 156 million hectares, with the largest areas in Niger, Mali, Ethiopia, and Eritrea.
Since 2007, much progress has been made in restoring fertility, including:
- In Burkina Faso, where more than 20,000 hectares of lands have been reforested and nearly 30,000 hectares of land have been restored.
- In Ethiopia, where more than 151,000 hectares of reforested land have been restored, and more than 236,000 hectares of land are undergoing assisted natural regeneration.
- In Nigeria, where nearly 3,000 hectares of land has been reforested and more than 700 kilometres of windbreaks planted.
- In Senegal, where more than 72,000 hectares have been reforested and 33,000 hectares are undergoing assisted natural regeneration.
- In Sudan, where 85,000 hectares of land has been restored, with 2,500 hectares undergoing assisted natural regeneration.
Learn more about the impact of the Great Green Wall initiative: https://www.unccd.int/our-work/ggwi/impact
Learn more about the Great Green Wall:
https://au.int/en/ggwi: Great Green Wall Initiative