As a box ticking exercise it is difficult to beat the Great Green Wall of Africa.

For those not familiar with this incredibly important and ambitious project, the Great Green Wall (aka GGW) is an international undertaking to prevent creeping desertification in Africa. It proposes to plant and maintain on the southern border of the Sahara Desert a nine-mile wide forest stretching 4,831 miles from Dakar on the Atlantic to Djibouti on the Red Sea.

It is estimated that the GGW will create 10 million jobs in one of the most poverty-stricken regions of the world. That means 10 million people less likely to seek survival in Europe and America.

More jobs means more income for governments which means increased political stability and improved governance in one of the most of the world’s most politically unstable and corrupt regions.

From a climate change perspective the GGW is potential wonderful news. The proposed grass and tree coverage is projected to restore 250 million acres of degraded land and capture 250 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Trees also play a major role in reducing global temperatures.

So far about $30 billion has been pledged from a variety of sources to complete the project by 2030. There has already been extensive planting in Senegal, Chad and Ethiopia.

But according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, one of the GGW’s major sponsors—the Great Green Wall is in danger of collapse. The number one threat is violence. Nine of the countries through which the GGW crosses are in the top 20 of the 2024 Global Terrorism Index.

They are the victims of civil war; Jihadist terrorist attacks; the withdrawal of French troops from the Sahel region and their replacement by Russian forces. The Jihadists in particular—and the Russians to a lesser degree—feed on political instability. The GGW encourages stability, so the Jihadists do whatever they can to disrupt the planting regime.

Violence is not the only problem. Critics also claim that the environmental initiative lacks political leadership. That is not surprising. Its roots stretch back to 1952-53 when one of the early climate change activists, British explorer and botanist Richard St Barbe Baker, first proposed the Great Green Wall. He went on to found the International Free Foundation which has since planted an estimated 26 trillion trees.

Many of the foundation’s trees were planted in the Sahel Region. But the foundation is a charity. Governmental coordination and vast amounts of aid were needed to ensure success. In 2002 the project was revived at a special African summit in Chad to launch World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. In 2012 the African Union took it on as a flagship project and in 2014 they were joined by the EU and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). At the One Planet Summit in 2021 various partners pledged $14.3 billion.

But the widespread interest also created problems. At the beginning of 2024 the project involved 21 countries and the same number of international organisations as well as a plethora of charities at international, national and local level. The wall needs directed political leadership and instead is plagued by a confusing babel of competing interests.

The Great Green Wall has serious problems. But the success of similar projects proves that it can be done. In the 1960s, Algeria successfully planted the Algerian Green Dam–a 600-mile long and nine mile wide stretch of forest on the northern edge of the Sahara.

More impressive is a Chinese project to hold back the Gobi Desert dubbed the Great Green Wall of China or the Three-North Shelter Forest Programme. The Chinese are taking a slowly but surely approach to their GGW. They started planting in 1978 and don’t expect to finish the 2,800-mile forest until 2050.  So far the Chinese have reversed desertification which destroyed 6,000 square miles of farmland a year in the 1980s. In 2022 the figure was down to 1,200 square miles.

India has plans to plant an 800-mile long and three-mile wide ecological corridor from Delhi to Gujarat. The Aravalli Range will hold back pollution rather than sand.

It is not all disappointing news from Africa. By the end of last year, 18 percent of the Great Green Wall of Africa had been planted. And where the trees have been planted farms have taken root alongside businesses in forestry management, eco-tourism and renewable energy. The Great Green Wall remains a project worthy of global attention.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain". To subscribe to his email alerts on world affairs click here.