Sharm el-Sheikh – The African Union Commissioner, Josefa Correia Sacko reiterated Tuesday in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, that the great green wall initiative was created to increase the capacity of the member States in the fight against land degradation, desertification, drought and resilience to climate change on the continent.
The Angolan official at the service of the African Union (AU), who was speaking at the side event on resource mobilisation and intervention synergy in the great green wall on the current situation and perspective, said that the Pan-African initiative represents one of the most innovative assessments by promoting solutions based on nature leveraging the continent´s ecosystem services.
“It is indeed a crucial initiative that provides the platform for the implementation of the African Union's Agenda 2063, including the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Programme (CAADP), the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), renewable energy, as well as Peace and Security Infrastructure”, assured the AU Commissioner.
According to the diplomat, the AU policy has always consistently demonstrated that sustainable implementation can only be carried out with local, national, regional and international integrated synergy and that the model has proved to be a solution to combat this phenomenon.
Josefa Correia Sacko acknowledged that the strategy is now being extended to other dry lands of the continent, namely in the SADC region in collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other member States.
Despite the achievements and funds raised, the initiative still needs additional funds to ensure the implementation of the programme, the diplomat added that in the “Summit on One Planet of 2021, over USD 23 billion has been pledged by our development partners”.
“We created the Great Green Wall accelerator to follow up and mobilise these pledges. The team have been doing excellent work in collaboration with all stakeholders”, Josefa Sacko assured.
Nevertheless, with the evolution of the process, the person responsible for agriculture, rural development, blue economy and sustainable environment at the AU Commission, reiterated that the procedures should be simplified in order to lessen bureaucracy and to facilitate the absorption of funds, without which it will be impossible to implement the Great Green Wall initiative.
Josefa Correia Sacko warned that in Somalia the number of people affected by drought increased from 4.9 million in March to around 6.1 million in April 2022, of which 760,000 are displaced and in urgent need of shelter, food, water and access to services.
