• The Great Green Wall (GGW) is focused on land restoration through tree planting and natural regeneration across 8,000km of the Sahel.
• Impacts to-date include land restoration on 4m hectares of the official target zone and an additional 14m ha across the target region. USD 90m in revenue has also been generated.
• The GGW has the potential to contribute to global goals related to climate mitigation, ecological resilience, improved human health and wellbeing, and equity and empowerment.

The Great Green Wall initiative is a pan-African flagship programme of the African Union that seeks to tackle the triple challenges of desertification, climate change and loss of biodiversity. It aims to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land stretching across 8 000 km of Africa from west to east, sequester 250 million tons of carbon, and create 10 million green jobs by 2030 across the Sahel region (UNCCD, 2020; GGW website).

The Great Green Wall initiative is a pan-African flagship programme of the African Union that seeks to tackle the triple challenges of desertification, climate change and loss of biodiversity. It aims to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land stretching across 8 000 km of Africa from west to east, sequester 250 million tons of carbon, and create 10 million green jobs by 2030 across the Sahel region (UNCCD, 2020; GGW website).

The Africa Union’s Great Green Wall Initiative Strategy and ten-year Implementation Framework, drafted in December 2022, reiterates the need to facilitate collaboration between stakeholders – including strengthening linkages with the research community – to coordinate and scale actions towards achieving its goals.

To advance a transformational approach and in support of the Great Green Wall (GGW) Initiative, the GGW Accelerator and the Pan African Agency of the Great Green Wall (PAAGGW), the One GIAR ClimBeR Initiative, the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, along with CIFOR-ICRAF, have undertaken a study in four countries (Senegal, Mali, Ethiopia and Sudan) and hosted a series of virtual events across a wide range ot stakeholders to generate knowledge to understand key barriers to and potential solutions for accelerating impacts for the GGW.

To advance a transformational approach and in support of the Great Green Wall (GGW) Initiative, the GGW Accelerator and the Pan African Agency of the Great Green Wall (PAAGGW), the One GIAR ClimBeR Initiative, the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, along with CIFOR-ICRAF, have undertaken a study in four countries (Senegal, Mali, Ethiopia and Sudan) and hosted a series of virtual events across a wide range of stakeholders to generate knowledge to understand key barriers to and potential solutions for accelerating impacts for the GGW.