The Untapped Potential of Great Green Wall Value Chains: An Action Agenda to Scale Restoration in the Sahel

The report identifies nine priority tree crop value chains in the Sahel—including shea, baobab, and moringa—that can drive land restoration through market-based incentives. While these crops offer significant environmental and social benefits, they face challenges such as low productivity, complex regulatory barriers for international export, and a lack of scientific data to validate their health properties. The document proposes a strategic action agenda to strengthen the enabling environment, empower local SMEs, generate global demand, and unlock carbon finance to achieve the Great Green Wall's goal of restoring 100 million hectares of land by 2030.

• The Great Green Wall (GGW) Initiative aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon, and create 10 million rural jobs by 2030.
• Nine tree crop value chains were prioritized for their potential to support a resilient socioecological system: shea, gum arabicas (Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal), African baobab, balanites, moringa, kinkeliba, African locust beans, and tallow tree.
• While the global personal care market is valued at $240 billion, the Sahel captures only an estimated $5 billion in value across all products, with most GGW oils lacking competitiveness due to quality, processing, and productivity issues.
• GGW products like kinkeliba leaves, baobab fruit powder, and moringa leaves have high potential in the $150 billion global superfood market, though they often lack the scientific evidence required to justify high-end pricing.
• Local SMEs in the GGW region are often small and vulnerable, with average revenues below $500,000, and they face significant barriers to accessing working capital and loan financing.
• International market entry is hindered by complex regulatory requirements, such as the EU Novel Food Regulation (EU NFR), USFDA registration, and the Nagoya Protocol, which can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for SMEs.
• Carbon finance represents a significant untapped opportunity for the Sahel, but its implementation is blocked by a lack of baseline data on carbon stocks, technical capacity gaps for SMEs, and regional political insecurity.
• Tripartite partnerships between international off-takers, local SMEs, and community-based organizations (CBOs) are identified as a success factor for improving traceability and providing pre-financing to farmers.

APA

World Economic Forum (2022). The Untapped Potential of Great Green Wall Value Chains: An Action Agenda to Scale Restoration in the Sahel. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_1t.org_Sahel_GGW_Value_Chain_Action_Agenda_2022.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. The Untapped Potential of Great Green Wall Value Chains: An Action Agenda to Scale Restoration in the Sahel. 2022. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_1t.org_Sahel_GGW_Value_Chain_Action_Agenda_2022.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=The Untapped Potential of Great Green Wall Value Chains: An Action Agenda to Scale Restoration in the Sahel |date=September 2022 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_1t.org_Sahel_GGW_Value_Chain_Action_Agenda_2022.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2022untapped, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{The Untapped Potential of Great Green Wall Value Chains: An Action Agenda to Scale Restoration in the Sahel}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2022}, month = sep, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_1t.org_Sahel_GGW_Value_Chain_Action_Agenda_2022.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }