Summary

    Updated 13/04/23

    The Great Green Wall (GGW), established in 2007 by 11 countries in the Sahara and Sahel (from Dakar to Djibouti), is a pioneering initiative aimed at sustainably reversing land degradation processes and improving living conditions while preserving the production of the agrosystems in this area. The evaluation of this program in 2020 showed significant progress, though still far from the objectives of restoring 100 million ha of degraded land, sequestering 250 million tons of carbon and creating 10 million green jobs by 2030. An analysis of the scientific productions reveals the existence of an expertise covering a wide variety of fields of interest for the sustainable development of the GGW area, but only a very small fraction of this expertise has documented the disciplinary fields useful for decision-making in the implementation of the GGW. Efforts should be made to make the African scientific community one of the actors in the new vision of the GGW initiative and a stakeholder in the territorial, national and regional coalitions that are being developed to support the launch of the GGW Accelerator.

    The main objective of the IRN RESET_GGW is to structure, strengthen and make visible an interdisciplinary research community, active and engaged with the various national and regional coalitions, in order to act in a coordinated way to achieve the objectives of the GGW. To achieve this goal we will deploy several complementary activities (networking and scientific animations, coordination and research for synergy with non-academic actors, promotion and sharing of results and data, transversal and multidisciplinary training). These activities will take place within an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach that is inspired by the foundations of sustainability science and puts forward research axes that have so far been little documented in the framework of GGW (carbon sequestration, biodiversity, preservation and efficiency of resource use, security and stability of territories, land issues, restructurations of agricultural production units, dynamics of rural family economies, mobility and transition between rural space and urban development, and feedbacks between GGW and climate). We will be reaching our goal after the 4 years of the network's life, if the research of the GGW countries is represented in the coalitions of actors at national and regional levels and mobilized in the emergence of projects and the scientific production on the global interest themes and the local impacts related to the implementation of the GGW.

    • Foreign institutions involved
      • Burkina Faso : (1) Institut de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA), (2) University Joseph Ki Zerbo (UJKZ)
      • Djibouti : Centre d’étude et de recherche de Djibouti (CERD)
      • Ethiopia : University of Addis Abeba (AAU)
      • Niger : (1) Structure Fédérative de Recherche résilience des agroécosystèmes face au climat et intensification écologique au Sahel (SFR RACINES), (2) University Abdou Moumouni de Niamey (UAM), (3) University André Salifou de Zinder, (4) University Dan Dicko Dankoulodo de Maradi (UDDM)
      • Senegal : (1) Centre de suivi écologique (CSE), (2) Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA), (3) University Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), (4) University Gaston Berger, Saint Louis (UGB)
      • Chad : Institut Tchadien de Recherche Agronomique pour le développement (ITRAD)

       

    • Research labs (UMR) involved
      • CBGP, CEFE, DIADE, G-EAU, Eco&Sols, ESPACE-DEV, iEES-Paris, IGE, LPED, IMBE, PRODIG, SENS, URMIS, UMMISCO, UMR Art-Dev, UMR SELMET/ dP PPZS (Pôle Pastoralisme et Zones Sèches)
    • Scientific coordination
      • Oumarou MALAM ISSA
    • Research fields

      Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (Soil Science, Agronomy, Terrestrial Animal and Plant Ecology, Plant Physiology, Entomology, Genetics), Earth and Universe Sciences (Soil Science, Space), Environment and Society (Geography, Sociology and Anthropology), Data Science (Modeling and Simulation)

    • Keywords

      Agrobiodiversity, Sustainable land and natural resource management, Ecosystem services, Production systems, Migration and mobility, Rural land

    Span : 2023-2026