“Through the accelerator of the Great Green Wall, it is indeed a form of green neocolonialism that emerges”

En January 2021, the accelerator the great green wall (GMV) was announced by Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the 3e One Planet Summit. This platform aims to accelerate the implementation of this project [une ceinture végétale qui doit relier Dakar à Djibouti]harmonizing the “efforts of funding partners”. However, by wanting to accelerate the GGW, and dictate to the Sahelian states and their populations his own political temporality, the French president risks putting an end to this initiative.

Pan-African project designed by eleven Sahelian states from 2005 [Sénégal, Mauritanie, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Tchad, Soudan, Erythrée, Ethiopie et Djibouti], the GGW is developing around a dual objective: combating desertification and developing the resources of local populations. From the outset, it was built as a project implemented locally through a participatory approach involving the populations.

This organization leaves great freedom to each State for the realization of its portion of GGW, making it possible to adapt this pan-African project to the contingency of the situations, following the example of the armed conflicts affecting certain zones. This is why the GGW is, and must be, thought over a long time.

In Senegal, since 2008, 57,000 hectares have been reforested, more than 1,500 kilometers of firewalls have been installed, twelve multipurpose gardens – allowing agriculture and income generation – have been established, although some are currently the stop. Without speaking trivially of success or failure, the GGW has therefore given rise to tangible results in favor of ecological restoration and the improvement of the living conditions of populations.

An additional three billion dollars

In January 2021, during the GGW investment forumorganized by the French President and the Prince of Wales (since Charles III), Emmanuel Macron announces a new initiative: the GGW accelerator.

Observing knowledge (“We now know what is wrong” [sic]), He wishes “accelerate the movement” thanks to a fundraising of 14 billion dollars (about 12.70 billion euros). A disproportionate sum for objectives which are just as disproportionate since it is a question, by 2030, of:

– restore 100 million hectares of degraded land;

– sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon;

– create ten million jobs.

He concludes thus: “I want to believe that we are changing the conditions for the success of this Great Green Wall (…). If we manage to achieve the results we have set ourselves, it is truly the future of the eleven countries and of the African continent that we can change. »

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