Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

335. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the progress that has been to date on the UNCCD Great Green Wall project and Ireland's engagement with UNCCD; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57904/22]

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Great Green Wall is a Pan-African initiative to sustainably manage and restore land in the Sahel-Saharan region. This region includes more than twenty African countries. The aim of the Great Green Wall is to rehabilitate 8,000 km of fertile land by 2030. The intervention zone dedicated to the Great Green Wall covers land between Senegal and Djibouti and is home to 232 million people.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is one of a number of bodies involved in the Great Green Wall initiative. The project, launched in 2007, is approximately 15% complete, and is already increasing jobs and improving food security across the region. In 2020, it was reported that eleven participating countries had collectively rehabilitated some four million hectares of land between 2007 and 2019.

At the One Planet Summit for Biodiversity, held in January 2021, US$14 billion was pledged to fund action to protect biodiversity, including support to assist the completion of the Great Green Wall by 2030.

Ireland’s partnership with the UNCCD is led by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, which made a €1.2 million contribution in 2018 to the UNCCD for the Great Green Wall. The expenditure on this grant is ongoing. The Department of Foreign Affairs made an additional contribution of €50,000 to the Great Green Wall in 2018.