Make Africa’s Great Green Wall a Reality by 2030, Say Industry Leaders

Bennett Oghifo

As the UN Climate Action Summit holds in New York, this week, global leaders from government, business and civil society are issuing an urgent call to action to grow an 8000km natural wonder of the world across the entire width of the African continent.

The Great Green Wall, an African-led movement, aims to, at once, drive forward climate-smart solutions and bring back life to degraded landscapes in order to provide food security, jobs and thriving new economies for the communities living in Africa’s Sahel region. An estimated 15% of the Wall is already underway.

Influential leaders from business, politics, media, the film and music industries will gather at Goals House in New York this week to spotlight the Great Green Wall as a practical, low-cost nature-based solution responding to the global climate emergency.

Participants are expected to call on governments, civil society and business to join a growing global movement to make the Great Green Wall a reality by 2030, according to a statement by UNCCD.

Jim Pisani, Global Brand President, Timberland, is expected to announce Timberland’s new commitment to the Great Green Wall initiative, as an example of how businesses are investing in this global movement.

Fernando Meirelles, Academy Nominated Director of City of God, and Executive Producer of The Great Green Wall feature documentary, and Hamzat Lawal, the Nigerian youth activist, are among the speakers.

The event will also feature musical performances by Songhoy Blues, Waje and Grammy-winning artist Ricky Kej as well as clips from the upcoming feature documentary titled, The Great Green Wall (Directed by Jared P. Scott), produced by MAKE Waves in association with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD is convening the event, which is jointly being organised by the UNCCD and Connect4Climate - World Bank Group represented at the event by Juergen Voegele, Global Director of the World Bank’s Climate Change Group.

The Sahel – where the Great Green Wall is taking root – is a political hotspot. Nearly 80% of the land in this region is degraded, 33 million people are currently food insecure and temperatures are expected by rise by as much as 3-5 degrees by 2050. The most pressing challenges that humanity will face this century are already evident here, from food and water shortages, to climate