Africa: the Great Green Wall
African Corn Farmer, Oct 2024 Photo: Archive
October 25, 2024 Hour: 5:12 pm
In order to find solutions to the problems of climate change in Africa, the United Nations Convention against Desertification proposes tackling the drought in the peoples of the Sahel (Africa) by creating a “Great Green Wall” over a stretch of 8,000 kilometres, from Djibouti to Ethiopia.
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According to official data published by the UN, the initiative seeks to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, save 250 million metric tons of carbon and generate 10 million green jobs by 2030.
According to the Secretary-General of World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Petteri Taalas, “Climate change is having a growing impact on the African continent, hitting the most vulnerable hardest, and contributing to food insecurity, population displacement and stress on water resources. In recent months we have seen devastating floods, an invasion of desert locusts and now face the looming spectre of drought because of a La Niña event. The human and economic toll has been aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
But above all, the general objective of this subregional partnership is to strengthen the resilience of the inhabitants and improve their living conditions, which are endangered by the effects of climate change.
Today, some of its achievements are palpable. Around 12 million trees have been planted in less than a decade in Senegal. The UN confirms that 5 million hectares of land have been recovered. In addition, 500,000 additional tons of cereals have been produced annually in Niger, and 15 million hectares of degraded land have been rehabilitated in Ethiopia
“This remarkable initiative is changing the lives of many people across Africa, including in countries prone to conflict,” says Mirey Atallah, coordinator of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), who also welcomes the fact that the project “demonstrates the great benefits of restoring landscapes seriously threatened by climate change.”
The Sahel area includes the territories of Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Djibouti and Eritrea. This synergy of countries is convinced that they can jointly tackle one of the biggest problems in Southern Africa: desertification.
In addition to the Sahel project, the UN says that the African Union intends to expand the project to the southern part of the continent in the future.
Autor: OSG
Fuente: EFE-Africanews
