This high-level conference builds on the international momentum around the GGWI and follows up on the One Planet Summit, the 6th AU-EU Heads of State Summit and international conferences such as the Biodiversity, Desertification and Climate COPs.
It also complements the launch of the Global Gateway and new EU regulations on deforestation-free products. The conference brought together key stakeholders from Africa and Europe (political leaders, field experts, research organisations, development and financial institutions, and civil society) to discuss how to enhance the African-European partnership, and develop credible mid (2030) and long-term (2050) strategies for investment in the Great Green Wall.
HIGH-LEVEL KICK-OFF SESSION:
- Catherine Chabaud, MEP (Renew), Member of the Development (DEVE) Committee, Member of the Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, Member of the SDG Alliance
- Ibrahim Mayaki, AU Special Envoy for Food Systems, and Co-chair of the Africa-Europe Foundation Strategy Group on Agriculture and Food Systems; Honorary President of the Sahel and West Africa Club at the OECD; former Prime Minister of Niger and CEO of AUDA-NEPAD
"We tend to forget that the definition of the Great Green Wall was actually a paradigm shift in our development patterns. We were used to managing macro economic indicators, sectorial indicators, and we used to neglect the spatial dimension of development. And this Great Green Wall aims at discovering this spatial dimension in development."
"This is a multisectoral project. We deal with climate issues, job creation, agriculture, land management, land planning. And from an institutional point of view, we're not ready to deal with these multi sectoral issues. This weakness is also reflected by the large array of partners.
"We need to introduce innovation at the institutional level: a model that goes beyond national offices, beyond the agency as such, in order to have a more global architecture." - Brahim Said, Executive Secretary of the Pan African Agency of the Great Green Wall (PAAGGW)
- Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
"Europe and Africa need to rethink their relationship to land. Africa was always a promised land for Europe. During the slavery time of the triangle trade, the Europeans came to Africa to take slaves and to bring them to America. African farmers have created Europe through the sugar plantations. Colonized Africa created value from the resources and exported the resources. The trade of raw materials exploitation continues today. We have to review the EU-Africa relationship in order to create more jobs in Africa, more African value chains to have at least some level of local processing in Africa. But for that, we we need to keep some minimum level of economic development in Africa. We produce cocoa for example, but we don't have chocolate and we only have 5 or 6% of revenues, staying in Africa. The rest goes for export and this is what we have to review."
- S.E Mahamadou Issoufou, former President of Niger, Champion of the Great Green Wall and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and member of the Africa-Europe Foundation (AEF) High Level Panel of Personalities
"The Mahamadou Issoufou Foundation will organize with the Niger government a Forum on the commitment of the private sector to the Great Green Wall initiative. This forum will take place on June 5 2023."
[05/06/2023] The forum was organized by the IMF in partnership with the Ministry ofEnvironment and Desertification, Futures Agribusiness (FAGRIB), the Great Green Wall Foundation (GGWoA) and the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall (APGMV). Under the theme of "Creating markets and restoring land for the people and the planet", the forum mobilized the entire private sector of the Sahel to implement this initiative. H.E. CEO Ramatoulaye Diallo N'diaye addressed the Private Sector Engagement in Niger
- Stéphane Bijoux, MEP, Vice-chair of the Committee on Development (DEVE), Chair of the EU-CARIFORUM Delegation, Member of the Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development
From words to action – implementing the Great Green Wall
The Great Green Wall Initiative was initially created by leaders of the African Union to offer tools to their population to create local prosperity for and by themselves. The initiative is based on people on the frontlines fighting every day to build better livelihoods. These voices from the field provide a better understanding of the challenges but also the opportunities offered by the initiative, and how better to support local efforts which can achieve global impact.
This session aims to demonstrate concrete success stories from the field, offering testimony which illustrates the key ingredients needed to make progress, and presenting practical and replicable measures. Such examples must provide the foundation stones for scaling up the implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative.
- Oumar Abdoulaye Bâ, Director of ASERGMV (Senegalese Agency for the Great Green Wall reforestation)
"A young lady in the Great Green Wall will probably get married when she is 13 years. When she turns 16 she will have her first born and a second child when 18. While pregnant again, she wakes up at 5am to walk 2, 3, or 5 kilometers to bring water at home and to prepare breakfast. She would have to take the road again at 2pm to bring back water to cook for her children. And you look at her from your cooled car, and you ask her to do something to decarbonize. Maybe it's meaningful for you but not for her because you don't have the same priorities. If you just planted a strip of trees, you missed the point."
"We need to have a mapping of the collective intelligence as we work at the service of communities. It is important that we listen to them because these people have been living in those areas for hundreds of years. They have a local knowledge that we have to give value. When you go to the Sahel, you see abandoned cars, abandoned houses. This is a picture that you have to keep in mind. Such intelligence starts by understanding what is important. What we know is not important. What they don't know is not important. 3 things happen: (a) What you don't know, you know; (b) What you know, you know; (c) But what you don't know you don't know is more important than anything else. When we don't have this, we don't have it at all. The only solution is collective intelligence.
- Birguy Lamizana, Sahel Senior Programme Manager, Global Mechanism at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
- Yusuf Maina Bakar, Director of the Great Green Wall for Nigeria
- Rémi Hémeryck, Executive Director SOS Sahel
- Patrick Worms, Senior Science Policy Advisor, CIFOR-ICRAF
- Nabil Ben Khatra, Executive Secretary of the Sahel and Sahara Observatory
- Andrew Harper, Special Advisor to the High Commissioner for Climate Action at the United Nations Human Right Commission (UNHCR)
"We have to look at where we've got to move, away from the polemics and the jargon and look at where there is a convergence between the interests of both Africa and Europe? And it comes down to the stabilization of populations. But not just to force the stabilization of populations. It's about the dignity of people. It's about giving people a sense of future. And if you don't do that, you're gonna have what's happening now. There's a lot of bravado, there's a lot of success stories, but I've been to sone of these locations and it's miserable."
"UNHCR has 60 offices in West Africa in the Sahel for a reason. Because each one of these countries is hosting refugees, or internally displaced persons. Populations are going to double in some countries, including Burkina within the next 20 years. Climate change is real. El Nino is real. You're gonna have crop failures. You're gonna have increasing competition over water. You're gonna have violence. You're gonna have displacement. You're gonna have mega trends which are going to be exacerbated by the inability of richer developed nations (who have benefited from the resources of all of Africa), to own up to the responsibilities and actually support what's required."
"There's not a lack of data. There's not a lack of analysis. There's not a lack of trends. There's not a lack of projects. There's not a lack of passion, you're hearing the passion all around us now. There's a lack of action."
"We've got Macron's Summit coming up in June [Sommet pour un « Nouveau pacte financier mondial » 22 - 23 June]. We've got the African Climate Summit [4 - 6 September]. We've got the SG Secretary General's Climate Ambition Summit 2023 [20 September 2023]. We've got the COP 28 presidency coming up [November]. There's enough summit there's enough talk. At what point do we start challenging ourselves to say: okay, what steps are going to be made between now and the Macron Summit?"
"Let's turn the the approach from one of of promoting dependency to one of promoting empowerment, one of sustainability. One of using African solutions, but with Northern resources. We don't have time to waste. I was talking to the European Parliament a year ago and I don't think much has changed. So each one of us has a responsibility not to accept the status quo
. Each one of us has a responsibility to challenge our neighbor to say: Okay, what you're actually saying is true."
- Crop circles of a new kind are sprouting in Senegal. These circular, drought-resistant Tolou Keur gardens are designed to improve food security, slow desertification, and provide livelihoods within communities living just south of the Sahara Desert.
- In this Reuters video from Boki Diawe, agricultural engineer Aly Ndiaye explains Tolou Keur gardens, a relatively new approach to the Great Green Wall reforestation project. Ndiaye envisions the Tolou Keur gardens linking together across the country.
Unlocking finance & delivering an ambitious Africa-Europe agenda for the Great green wall
Endowed since the One Planet Summit in 2021 with a financial envelope of $19 billion for the period from 2021-2025, the Great Green Wall initiative needs to be further supported in order to deliver and demonstrate the social, economic and environmental benefits it can bring to the Sahel’s development. A clear mapping of the pledges is needed to build strong partnerships, and develop credible mid (2030) and long-term (2050) strategies.
- How to unlock the finance pledges, make funding more efficient and agile for projects with demonstrated socio-economic and environmental benefits? What complementary measures to strengthen delivery on the ground?
- How to encourage Europe to work with African leaders to develop a long-term approach to support the Great Green Wall, encompassing a sustainable agri-food production plan (e.g. plant-based and animal protein plan) and soil restoration?
- Can Europe and Africa co-create a sustainable food-production plan in the Sahel to cope with the rise in famines, food insecurity, and how can the Sahel region benefit most from the Great Green Wall initiative?
- Myriam Ferran Deputy Director General, DG International Partnership, European Commission
"We have pledged more than 700 million euros a year during the lifetime of the program. We are in the middle of the process of implementing. We have met this expectation for 2021 and we are in a good way to also meet the financial commitment for 2022 and 2023."
"The RIPOSTES project in Senegal, has the objective of creating 2000 new green jobs, restoring 30,000 hectare of land and improving land governance."
- Dorsuma Al-Hamndou, Division Manager, Climate and Green Growth Department at African Development Bank Group (AfDB)
- Markus Berndt, Director-General and acting Managing Director at the European Investment Bank (EIB)
- Estherine Fotabong, Director of Programme Implementation and Coordination at the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD)
"20 billion euros have been made available by the one Planet Summit for the accelerator program. However, the estimated figure to implement the program is about 33 billion. Why do we [only] have 10% or 2.5 billion disbursed. There must be a problem somewhere? Have we identified that? What are the reasons for this?"
"The member states do not even know where the resources are. We should map where these resources are [...] so that member states can be informed to approach these sources to get these resources."
"A reason for this low disbursement is the potential to develop bankable programs that can be financed. We support member states by putting in place a project development facility that works with member states to look at developing the multi sector integrated programs."
"The Great Green Wall is a flagship of the EU. Perhaps we need to interrogate what does that mean? The implementation support, for instance, is 700 million, which is a significant resource. [But] is there a clear action plan on how to disburse these funds to member states or to the institutions that support member states to implement their action plans of the Great Green Wall initiative in their countries?"
"I don't think we give sufficient importance on how little resources can empower communities and provide alternative livelihoods to these communities. The TerraFund for AFR100 [a fund for locally led land restoration projects operating in Africa] grants small sums of money: $5,000. It turns out that $10,000 or maximum $20,000 is doing a lot in terms of income generating activities."
"It took us perhaps 10 years to start getting traction for this very important program. Why? Because we get changes in the rules of the multilateral systems. At the time we were designing this program, regional funding of GEF [Global Environmental Facility] was a priority. By the time we finished designing it, it wasn't a priority anymore. We moved into supporting national programs and therefore there was no funding coming for such an important initiative. So consistency and long term commitment are essential."
- Sandra Rullière, Deputy Head of Rural Development and Agriculture Division at the French Development Agency (AFD) (tbc)
- William Kwende, Founder of Serious Shea, Burkina Faso
"Only sustainable value chains are going to make the Great Green Wall project survive beyond us for the next generation. 15 million women are producing 1 million tons of Shea butter. 90% of it goes to chocolate. And without that we wouldn't have chocolate anymore. If the private sector doesn't take this role, nobody will do it."
"With the support of the AFDB, we have developed a technology that can help process Shea in the Sahel without the need of fossil fuel. [...] We are also connecting the community that are processing their goods to the international market. [...] We use the processing opportunity to produce fertilizers because every byproducts of agro-processing has the potential to produce fertilizers."
"The private sector in Africa has an important role to play because we see it as the only way to make these opportunities sustainable."
- Ahmed Aziz Diallo, Mayor of Dori & C3Sahel Coordinator
- Barry Andrews, Member of the European Parliament, President of the SDG Alliance
- Diane Binder, President of the Alliance of the Private Sector for the Great Green Wall
"Sahel land is actually very rich and very wealthy. We are talking about products like Moringa, Shea, Baobab, Balantes,... I could name probably 60 other species like those ones which have a market potential, which are good for the health and which are good for the planets."
"I don't believe that the Great Green Wall Initiative in the Sahel actually needs public aid. What I believe is that public aid needs to be there to unlock opportunities that already exist. Capacities exist, the products exist and the markets exist and need to be supported."
Related: Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR)
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) is a low-cost land restoration technique used to combat
poverty and hunger amongst poor subsistence farmers by increasing food and timber production and resilience to climate extremes.
- In practice, FMNR involves the systematic regrowth and management of trees and shrubs from felled tree stumps, sprouting root systems or seeds.
- The regrown trees and shrubs – integrated into crops and grazing pastures – help restore soil structure and fertility, inhibit erosion and soil moisture evaporation, rehabilitate springs and the water table, and increase biodiversity.
- Some tree species also impart nutrients such as nitrogen into the soil.
- As a result, FMNR can double crop yields, provide building timber and firewood, fodder and shade for livestock, wild foods for nutrition and medication, and increase incomes and living standards for farming families and their communities.
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