"ASERGMV Director General Calls for National Coalition for Great Green Wall Integration Program Capitalization"

2023-05-19 22:36:45

Dakar, May 19 (APS) – The Director General of the Senegalese Agency for Reforestation and the Great Green Wall (ASERGMV), Oumar Abdoulaye Bâ, invited stakeholders on Friday to form a national coalition to discuss the capitalization of the integrative program of the Great Green Wall.

”It is important to form a national coalition in Senegal to discuss the implementation and capitalization of the integrative program of the Great Green Wall. Through this program, we can become a model laboratory for other countries in the region,” he said.

Mr. Bâ presented the integrative program of the Great Green Wall during a sharing and discussion workshop on this subject.

”We went in search of citizens to better understand how they perceive their environment, which is why we are talking about collective intelligence at the level of the implementation of the integrative program of the Great Green Wall”, a- he notably added.

He felt that the paradigm shift in tree planting must be taken into account to enable people to integrate and benefit from this process.

”Instead of forbidding people to cut trees, we should approach them and help them to plant others. This will contribute to their food resilience and tree conservation,” he said.

In the implementation of this integrative program, he also mentioned the place of ecovillages which remain a system for creating a healthy environment with added value.

“We started from 15 projects to 70, because we must have routes for ecosystems that will also allow job creation,” suggested Mr. Bâ.

For him, the integration program can have a real impact in the fight against irregular immigration, insecurity, terrorism, etc.

“The investment of the Great Green Wall is the key to the security of our environment, the fight against irregular immigration, terrorism, rural exodus, etc.,” he argued.

To achieve this, he stressed the importance of having a map of the available water, that of the degraded soil as well, in order to develop a good strategy for the Great Green Wall.

”We cannot build the routes of the Great Green Wall without taking care of the primary needs of the communities”, he concluded.