Strengthening Coordination and Implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative (UNCCD/GGWI)



Contract partner: UNCCD - United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification - Secretariat Country: Subsahara-Afrika, regional/länderübergreifend Funding amount: € 1.700.000,00 Project start: 01.11.2020 End: 31.10.2024

Short Description:

Overall goal


The long-term objective of the project is to improve integrated transboundary land restoration, ecosystem protection, and natural resource management under the Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI). The Project aims to enhance the GGWI stakeholders’ capacities to better prepare, monitor and manage projects according to high standards; produce, manage, report high quality data; and encourage new investors and donors to contribute to a new generation of GGWI projects.


Expected results


Key outcomes expected from the Project interventions are as follow:

First, the Pan-African Agency on the Great Green Wall Initiative (PA-GGW) and the national GGW agencies have an improved capacity to plan, monitor and evaluate transboundary land restoration, natural resource management, and ecosystem protection activities under the GGW. This will include an increasing bottom-up approach to data provision and monitoring.

Second, it will improve knowledge of high-potential GGW activities with multiple benefits for local communities (e.g., young people and women, poor, marginalized and vulnerable groups, people with disabilities, ethnic/religious minorities), including identification of impactful projects, development of a transboundary land and water resource management strategy, and development of a pilot project to showcase the proof of concept. In return, it will facilitate securing greater opportunities to generate and attract interest from donors and investors.


Target group / Beneficiaries


The Project will directly benefit the Pan-African Agency on the Great Green Wall Initiative (PA-GGW) and its national agencies. The activities envisioned under this Project will have a special focus – where possible – on Burkina Faso and West Africa, but will also benefit all countries covered by the GGWI, namely Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauretania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. The number of direct beneficiaries of the Project is estimated to be 500. This number includes staff, consultants, officials of the PA-GGW, and the national agencies who will receive direct support from the Project as well as the direct beneficiaries of the pilot project.


Activities


The main activities of the project are:

- Developing an enhanced Monitoring &Evaluation system by mobilizing available monitoring and evaluation expertise and tools.

- Technical assistance to and capacity development of GGW stakeholders at the regional, national, and local level to facilitate cross-border and cross-agencies consultations and information/knowledge sharing.

- Analysis of emerging opportunities, including those targeting women and the youth, for transformational change is produced and disseminated to relevant stakeholders.

- Developing and implementing a pilot project that can be upscaled across the GGW by other partners (proofing of concept).

- Developing a transboundary land and water resource management strategy.

- Promotion/advocacy activities for deal-brokering with the potential investors and donors.


Context


The Great Green Wall Initiative is one of the earliest transnational restoration initiatives in Africa led by 11 founding Sahelian countries under the political auspices of the African Union, with the vision to combat land degradation and desertification across the Sahel region. As an African-led movement that contributes to 15 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the GGW Initiative brings together countries and international partners to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, sequester 250 million tons of carbon and create 10 million green jobs by 2030. It also promotes sustainability and security to help the region deliver the 2030 Agenda and the African Union 2063 Agenda, adopt an inclusive green growth approach, and reduce land degradation while advancing efforts that conserve and rehabilitate the environment.

As of today, close to 18 million hectares of land have been restored, over 350,000 jobs have been created and around USD 90 million in revenues have been generated from 2007 to 2018 through GGW activities. The restored area could sequester over 300 MtCO2 to 2030, which would represent roughly 30% of the envisioned target for the GGW. Nevertheless, the Sahel region still faces enormous environmental, social and development challenges, which continue to put a severe strain on the resilience of its population. A new vision is necessary for countries to continue their collective efforts for a sustainable, resilient and prosperous Sahel. This is even more critical with the negative socio-economic effects of COVID 19.

 

project number 2518-00/2020
source of funding OEZA
sector Umweltschutz allgemein
tied 0
modality Contributions to specific-purpose programmes and funds managed by international organisations (multilateral, INGO)
marker Environment: 2, Climate change mitigation: 1, Climate change adaptation: 1, Biodiversity: 1, Desertification: 2, Gender: 1, Poverty: 1
  • Policy marker: are used to identify, assess and facilitate the monitoring of activities in support of policy objectives concerning gender equality, aid to environment, participatory development/good governance, trade development and reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Activities targeting the objectives of the Rio Conventions include the identification of biodiversity, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and desertification.
    • 1= policy is a significant objective of the activity
    • 2= policy is the principal objective of the activity
  • Donor/ source of funding: The ADA is not only implementing projects and programmes of the Austrian Development Cooperation , but also projects funded from other sources and donors such as
    • AKF - Foreign Disaster Fund of the Austrian federal government
    • BMLFUW - Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
    • EU - Funds of the European Commission
    • Others - various other donors are listed in ADA’s annual business report.
  • Type of Aid – Aid modalities: classifies transfers from the donor to the first recipient of funds such as budget support, core contributions and pooled programmes and funds to CSOs and multilateral organisations, project-type interventions, experts and other technical assistance, scholarships and student costs in donor countries, debt relief, administrative costs and other in-donor expenditures.
  • Purpose/ sector code: classifies the specific area of the recipient’s economic or social structure, funded by a bilateral contribution.
  • Tied/Untied: Untied aid is defined as loans and grants whose proceeds are fully and freely available to finance procurement from all OECD countries and substantially all developing countries. Transactions are considered tied unless the donor has, at the time of the aid offer, clearly specified a range of countries eligible for procurement which meets the tests for “untied” aid.