Green Climate Fund backs $222 million SURAGGWA programme for Great Green Wall

The Scaling-Up Resilience in Africa's Great Green Wall (SURAGGWA) programme launched with a $222 million Green Climate Fund investment, approved in July 2025, to restore degraded landscapes across eight Sahel countries through 2035. The model offers ESG investors and governments a scalable, socially anchored climate-finance template aligning financing with measurable restoration and livelihood outcomes.

The Scaling-Up Resilience in Africa's Great Green Wall (SURAGGWA) programme launched with a $222 million Green Climate Fund investment, approved in July 2025, to restore degraded landscapes across eight Sahel countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. It aligns with the African Union-led Great Green Wall initiative aiming to create an 8,000 km green wall of trees, revive 100 million hectares of degraded land, create 10 million green jobs, and sequester 250 million tons of CO2-equivalent by 2030. Implementation will span until 2035.

The programme affects Sahel governments, national Great Green Wall agencies, the FAO, the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall, civil society, and rural communities, particularly women, youth, and vulnerable populations. SURAGGWA, formally endorsed July 4 2025 when Senegal's government and the FAO signed a partnership, has three components: landscape restoration using native species; support for low-emission, climate-resilient value chains for non-timber forest products; and strengthening Great Green Wall institutional capacity. National agencies such as Nigeria's National Agency for the Great Green Wall and government ministries will drive on-ground action.

ESG investors and governments should treat SURAGGWA as a mature, scalable, and deeply social climate-finance template aligning financing with sustainable outcomes and regional cooperation. Stakeholders should monitor implementation through 2035, coordinated by the FAO in partnership with the Pan-African Agency, and track progress toward the broader Great Green Wall targets of 100 million hectares restored, 10 million green jobs, and 250 million tons of CO2-equivalent sequestered by 2030. The value-chain approach centred on non-timber forest products could catalyse further green investment across the Sahel.

Key figure — Green Climate Fund investment: $222 million approved July 2025