The Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI) is a flagship programme of the African Union (AU), launched in 2007, to tackle desertification and land degradation in the Sahel and Sahara regions. Initially envisioned as a belt of trees to halt the spread of the desert, the initiative has grown into a continent-wide movement for land restoration and climate-resilient development. It seeks to revitalise degraded ecosystems, strengthen agriculture, pastoralism, and forestry, while improving livelihoods and resilience in vulnerable communities.
Acknowledging the importance of a unified continental response to land degradation, desertification, and climate change, and recognising the urgency of updating its direction, the African Union Commission developed a revised framework to guide the initiative. The new AU GGWI Strategy and Ten-Year Implementation Framework (2024–2034) promotes an integrated and holistic approach to land restoration and climate-resilient development among AU Member States, Regional Economic Communities, Agencies, and partners.
This resource hub provides easy access to key knowledge products related to the new GGWI Strategy. It features the full GGWI Strategy document, along with summary briefs and posters on its four strategic intervention axes. The hub also includes briefs on the proposed approaches for coordination and implementation, as well as for monitoring, evaluation, learning, and adaptation. A dedicated policy brief series, which will be expanded over time, examines regional policy coherence with the GGWI Strategy. The series currently covers areas including biodiversity, finance, climate change, forest management, livestock and pastoral systems, soil health, and the climate–peace–security nexus. In addition, the hub hosts reports from key engagements with AU Member States and partners as the initiative is operationalised.
