Great Green Wall: Rethinking Climate Change in Nigeria

The Great Green Wall project, led by the African Union, is an audacious call to rethinking Climate Change. The African-led initiative aims to grow an 8000km new world wonder across the entire width of the Continent to transform the lives of millions living on the frontline of climate change.

With the increasing global concerns about the impact of climate change, the Great Green Wall is expected to transform the lives of millions living on the front line of climate change by restoring agricultural land ruined by decades of overuse; when done, it should provide food, stem conflict and discourage migration, according to Times.

The implementation of the Initiative in Nigeria encompasses the eleven frontline states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara. Desertification is one of the major environmental challenges in Nigeria threatening the livelihoods of over 50 million people in these States. Within the framework of the GGW programme, it has been envisaged that about 22,500 sqkm of degraded land in the dry region of Nigeria will be rehabilitated for agricultural production and the livelihoods of over 25 million people will be improved by the year 2030.

So, on a wider scale, The Great Green Wall Initiative holds the key to the future of African drylands; a daring initiative that has the potential to bring back to the continent food and water security, create jobs and new economic opportunities, help in fighting climate change and to ensure people thrive sustainably.

The design will also significantly support the rehabilitation of the Internally Displaced People (IDPS) by creating job opportunities, managing income generation activities and systematically reclaiming degraded farm lands. In addition, it will reduce farmers – herders conflicts by creating grazing reserves and fodder farms in the Northern dry land areas. This way, the rate of South-ward migration of herders will significantly reduce.

The National Agency for Great Green Wall (NAGGW) has outlined a 5-Year Strategic Action Plan with the goal of improving the wellbeing of the affected people and reducing their vulnerability to the impact of desertification orchestrated by climate change through improved use of land and other natural resources for sustainable development and support to climate infrastructure. The development objective of the agency is to combat land degradation and desertification in Nigeria in order to protect and restore ecosystems and essential ecosystem services that are key to reducing poverty, enhancing food security, and promoting sustainable livelihoods.

While these are commendable plans, there are vital issues to be highlighted ahead of meeting the 2030 target. For one, the achievement of this project may be impeded if it is not properly funded by the Federal Government. The NAGGW is expected to get 15% of the Ecological Fund, however, not much can be seen of the funding. It is also worthy of note that the awareness of the agency’s strategic plans to implement the Great Green Wall in Nigeria is significantly low and media representation is quite poor. Nigerians do not know about the Great Green Wall neither are the issues of climate change indepthly discussed in mainstream media. 

The future belongs to the youth, and the GGW holds the key to a sustainable future, which means the implementation plan must be reviewed from a holistic perspective that includes young people. There has to be a strategic resuscitation of the entire sustainability value chain – livestock, horticulture, etc and capacities of young farmers must be enhanced through different stages including production, processing and promotion. The impact of this is that the social enterprise element of the GGW has the potential to effectively bring 60 million youths out of poverty in the near future.

Capacity of the staff of the agency and the implementers of the GGW must also be built. The competencies of these stakeholders to navigate modern technologies is important to the progression of achieving the NAGGW’s 5-Year target.

Also the NAGGW must set up policies to enhance accountability and transparency so that the international community can find the justification to scale up its support for Nigeria and the agency. Only then can the Great Green Wall bring value to lands, improve food security, create jobs and bring about stability to people’s lives.