ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — August 24, 2026 — The African Union Commission is using the global stage at UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia to push for greater investment and stronger partnerships to accelerate Africa’s Great Green Wall Initiative, one of the continent’s most ambitious environmental and development programs.
The AU is convening a high-level session titled “Restoring African Landscapes, Restoring Hope: Scaling the Great Green Wall through Continental Integration and the AU Great Green Wall Initiative Strategy (2024–2034).” The event is taking place as part of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification’s COP17, being held in Ulaanbaatar from August 17–28.
The session brings together the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank, UNCCD, the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall and regional partners to strengthen financing and coordination around land restoration. According to the UNCCD program, discussions are highlighting lessons from the Sahel as well as an emerging Great Green Wall investment program in the SADC region.
From the Sahel to a Continental African Project
The Great Green Wall was originally associated largely with efforts to combat desertification across Africa’s Sahel. But the AU is increasingly positioning the initiative as a broader continental framework connecting land restoration, climate adaptation, economic development and regional integration.
Under the AU Great Green Wall Initiative Strategy 2024–2034, the initiative is intended to support restoration efforts while creating economic opportunities for communities whose livelihoods depend heavily on healthy land.
The AU’s goal includes restoring 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, but mobilizing sufficient financing remains one of the biggest obstacles to achieving the initiative at scale.
At COP17, the AU and its partners are therefore seeking additional public and private investment and stronger coordination between governments, regional organizations, development banks and international partners.
UNCCD says the August 24 session is specifically intended to mobilize finance and partnerships while positioning the Great Green Wall as a major African platform for nature-based solutions, ecosystem restoration, climate adaptation and green jobs.
Why It Matters for African Integration
The Great Green Wall is becoming more than an environmental project. It represents an opportunity for African countries and Regional Economic Communities to address problems that cross national borders.
Desertification, drought, declining agricultural productivity and ecosystem degradation do not stop at border checkpoints. Coordinating restoration projects across countries could strengthen food security, protect rural livelihoods, create employment and make communities more resilient to climate shocks.
That continental approach also fits the African Union’s wider integration agenda: African countries coordinating policies and investments around challenges that individual states cannot effectively solve alone.
The challenge now is turning continental ambitions into financed projects on the ground.
As African and international leaders meet in Mongolia, the message behind the AU’s Great Green Wall strategy is increasingly clear: restoring Africa’s land can also become an investment in jobs, food security, climate resilience and deeper continental cooperation.