It is hard to deny the fact that the field of sustainable development has largely grown out of the Western world. Fortunately, little by little, this dominance is diminishing; the international nature of the field of sustainable development has intensified with time. The West is slowly but surely beginning to understand that the developing world may have a different understanding of sustainability, and different practices go along with this perception. The voices of non-Western countries are growing stronger. The 2018 membership of United Nations Development Program Executive Board, for example, reflects the shift away from Western-centric approach to sustainable development, with a Mauritian president and Korean, Antiguan, and Barbudan vice-presidents.
One might argue that, despite increased memberships, the presence of less developed countries is still restricted to international organizations that were founded and exist in a Western tradition. Therefore, perhaps we can find more promising evidence of a shift away from the West in the initiatives and projects that are created and led by developing countries themselves. In India, a number of startups and projects are helping the country “go green.” In Central America, Costa Rica has even been named a “model of sustainable development,” with an electric grid running on clean energy and aims to be carbon neutral by 2021. In looking to the African continent, we find yet again reasons to have hope. According to the United Nations Development Program, sub-Saharan Africa is indeed making progress, although poverty rates remain high due to factors long ingrained in the region such as limited economic diversification, land degradation, and age-old inequalities.
As for the progress achieved thus far, It is true that much of it was made possible by aid from foreign governments, especially in the form of official development assistance (ODA). In 2018, Africa claimed the highest percentage of total ODA in terms of regional shares, at around 32% of total ODA distributed. However, despite the help it may receive from outside sources, Africa has proven that it is both capable of and determined to help itself when it comes to remedying the various humanitarian issues plaguing various regions of the continent today. One of the most prominent ways in which it has shown its resolve is through the formation of the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative.
The Great Green Wall originated in 2005, conceptualized by Olusegun Obasanjo, then president of Nigeria. In consultation, the idea was strongly supported by President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. In fact, the idea itself was not entirely new; a British environmental scientist by the name of Richard St Barbe Baker had pondered the idea of planting trees across the southern border of the Sahara all the way back in 1952. However, he was never able to concretize the idea. This was not the case when President Obasanjo reevaluated the proposition 53 years later. Land degradation and desertification were widely thought to be the source of many of the socioeconomic and environmental problems plaguing the Sahel region, giving the idea the traction it needed to develop.
In 2007, the project gained momentum when it garnered the support of the African Union. Later, in 2010, the Great Green Wall Agency was officially founded by eleven countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan. The Initiative has since expanded to encompass twenty-one African countries participating in the project. The additional ten countries are located primarily in West and North Africa, including Cameroon, Ghana, Algeria, Benin, Cape Verde, Egypt, Gambia, Libya, and Tunisia. The Great Green Wall has also grown in terms of funding and partnerships. As of August 2018, the Initiative has about $8 billion of pledged funding and international partners including European Union, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the United Nations Environment Program, and the World Bank, to name a few. The various benefits of the implementation of the Great Green Wall fall under various United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, such as “no poverty,” “zero hunger,” “peace, justice, and strong institutions,” and “decent work and economic growth,” among others.
Furthermore, the Great Green Wall has not only progressed with regard to size and scope. It has also evolved greatly in terms of form and purpose. The Initiative was originally conceived as a literal wall of trees spanning 8,000 km across the entirety of the Sahel region, from Senegal to Djibouti. Today, the Great Green Wall is more of a metaphor than a physical goal. As stated by Mohamed Bakarr, lead environmental specialist for Global Environment Facility, “It is not necessarily a physical wall, but rather a mosaic of land use practices that ultimately will meet the expectations of a wall.” The project has essentially become an emphasis on the implementation of sustainable farming practices and techniques, with great attention to applying the right method to the right place. Examples of such techniques are farmer-managed natural regeneration (involving the farmer simply allowing the landscape to re-green itself, relying on ecological memory), digging half-moon pits for water storage, and analyzing which soil best supports which species so as to maximize efficiency of regrowth efforts.
The evolution of the Great Green Wall in this way stems from the fact that the core issue the “wall of trees” intended to address was desertification. Scientists have since argued that deserts are in fact healthy and precious ecosystems that play a key role in the larger biodiversity of the planet. Moreover, there is evidence that the Sahara Desert has actually retreated north by about 200 kilometers over the last 20-30 years. As the Wall initially had the goal of preventing the encroachment of the Sahara south into the Sahel, it can be argued that its original purpose was misinformed. However, despite these new arguments and facts coming to light, land degradation is nonetheless a major problem faced by countries in the Sahel region today.
African countries plagued by issues arising from land degradation and land mismanagement have set high goals for the Initiative in the coming years. On their website, the Initiative sets the following benchmarks: “By 2030, the Wall aims to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon, and create 10 million jobs in rural areas.” These are very ambitious targets which will require an immense amount of effort on the part of the member countries. The role of aforementioned international organizations will also be crucial in the near future in funding both research and concrete action over the years.
Tracking the progress of the Great Green Wall Initiative has proven to be rather challenging, as both national and subnational data in the Sahel region of Africa desperately need improvement. This is a limitation of the project in general, as it is difficult to know where future efforts should be placed, and in what form, when the current state of the project and the progress that has been made is unclear. Literature seems to indicate that Nigeria and Senegal, the initial leaders of the Initiative, are still at the forefront of its work. As of 2016, Senegal had restored four million hectares through the planting of trees. Nigeria has conducted an impressive amount of research related to the Initiative over the years, even laying out a National Strategic Action Plan. As time progresses and necessary resources are further developed, the hope is that each country will take it upon itself to develop such detailed and extensive plans of action in order to achieve the overarching goals of the regional project.
The shift in focus from a wall of trees to the promotion of sustainable land management is a project worthy of praise. A greater emphasis has been placed upon local or indigenous knowledge and resource strategies, aspects of sustainability measures that have too often been overlooked in the age of technology and globalization. In order to further peace, reduce hunger, eliminate poverty, and fight against the detrimental effects of climate change, the African Union and its individual member countries must continue on the righteous path they began at the beginning of the 21st century. The Great Green Wall may no longer be a wall, but it certainly remains green and great. The United States and other Western countries, whether they are ready to admit it or not, have much to learn from this African-led project and the think-global-act-local approach it has taken on in recent years.