EAC Industrialization Policy 2012-2032

The EAC Industrialization Policy and Strategy provides general contours of policy intentions and strategic areas of focus to guide EAC towards achieving the set goals and in particular, attaining industrialized economic status by 2032. The EAC Industrialization Policy is intended to address the challenges facing the region particularly, the need to build a more diversified regional economic structure. 

The formulation of the policy was accomplished through a comprehensive and inclusive process, based on analysis and wide consultations with stakeholders in the Partner States. The policy is aligned to the relevant Articles of the Treaty in particular Article 79 and 80 which provide for regional co-operation in matters of industrial development as well as Article 44 of Common Market Protocol in which the Partner States undertake to adopt common principles to cooperate in Industrial Development in the region. 

The Partner States have set themselves ambitious targets to be met within the timeframe, of the policy as follows: 

a) Diversifying the manufacturing base and raising local value added content (LVAC) of resource based exports to 40% from the currently estimated value of 8.62 % by 2032; 

b) Strengthening national and regional institutional frameworks and capabilities for industrial policy design and implementation; and delivery of support services to ensure sustainable industrialization in the region; 

c) Strengthening R&D, Technology and Innovation capabilities to facilitate structural transformation of the manufacturing sector and upgrading of production systems; 

d) Increasing the contribution of (i) intra regional manufacturing exports relative to total manufactured imports in to the region from the current 5% to about 25% by 2032 

e) increasing the share of manufactured exports as a percentage of total merchandise exports to 60% from an average of 20%; and

f) Transforming Micro Small and Medium Enterprises into viable and sustainable business entities capable of contributing up to 50% of manufacturing GDP from 20% base rate.

To address the industrialisation challenges, the following broad policy measures will be undertaken:

1. Promoting the Development of Strategic Regional Industries/Value Chains; and enhance Value Addition

2. Strengthening national and regional institutional capabilities for industrial policy design and management

3. Strengthening the capacity of industry support institutions (ISIs) to develop and sustain a competitive regional industrial sector

4. Strengthening the Business and Regulatory Environment

5. Enhancing access to financial and technical resources for Industrialization

6. Facilitating the development of, and access to appropriate industrial skills and know-how

7. Facilitating the Development of Micro, small and medium enterprises (MISMEs)

8. Strengthening Industrial Information Management and Dissemination Systems

9. Promoting equitable industrial development in the EAC region

10. Developing supporting infrastructure for industrialisation along selected economic corridors

11. Promoting regional collaboration and development of capability in industrial R&D, technology and innovation

12. Promoting sustainable Industrialisation and environment management

13. Expansion of trade and market access for manufactured products

14. Promoting Gender in industrial development.

To exploit the resource endowment in the region and enhance the region’s industrialisation levels, the EAC Industrialisation Policy has earmarked six strategic resource-based industries, in which the region has a comparative advantage and which will be developed to facilitate productive integration (PI) through industrial deepening, diversifying, specialisation and upgrading. The strategic regional industries to be promoted include:

1. Agro processing

2. Iron steel processing and other mineral processing

3. Chemicals (fertilizers and agro chemicals)

4. Pharmaceuticals

5. Energy

6. Oil and gas processing

See the Policy and related documents here.

The Mauritian Economic Miracle

Role of the Bank of Industry in Nigeria's Industrialization

Ghana Reaches World Bank Middle Income Status

Interesting...

On July 1, 2011 Ghana moved from low-income to lower middle-income status, according to World Bank country classifications. 

Projections from the Bank’s Global Economic Prospects position Ghana as the fastest growing economy in Sub-Saharan Africa for 2011, with a forecast GDP growth of 13.4 percent. Authorities are now anxious to see that the oil windfall has a positive, lasting impact on the lives of all Ghanaians. In particular, Ghana hopes to steer clear of the so-called “Dutch disease”—the unique paradox where resource-rich countries grow too heavily dependent on oil at the expense of other productive sectors.

On another note, Ghana’s largest and most important creditor for the past three decades has been the International Development Association (IDA), the soft loan window of the World Bank. That will soon come to an end given the country's middle income status. The combination of Ghana’s rapid economic growth and the recent GDP rebasing exercise means that Ghana suddenly finds itself above the income limit for IDA eligibility. Formal graduation is imminent and comes with significant implications for access to concessional finance, debt, and relations with other creditors. 

See related article here.

Why Investors are Flocking to Mauritius

Foreign companies with an eye on Africa’s emerging markets are apparently flocking to Mauritius to incorporate local subsidiaries in a move that could deny more than a dozen African governments billions in corporate taxes and position the island nation as the region’s economic hub.

Possibly the the range of incentives available to foreign firms in Mauritius. This includes a 15 per cent charge on a company’s taxable income such as business or trading profits. This amount is half the almost 30 per cent rate that other countries in the region apply to  similar income.

Foreigners living in Mauritius are also apparently spared royalty taxes compared to other countries in the region who in some cases tax at the rate of 20 per cent.  In addition, Mauritius has more than 30 double taxation treaties with African countries alone and has recently entered into Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (IPPAs) with its double taxation partners.

Finally an efficient judicial and dispute resolution mechanisms has also given Mauritius an edge over the competition in Africa, with the The World Bank’s Doing Business 2011 report, ranking Mauritius’ judicial system as the best in Africa in terms of reforms aimed at facilitating business and investment transactions.

See related full article here.

Agency Banking- Reaching the Unbanked

The agent bank offers the same services as a real bank —cash deposits and withdrawal, disbursement and repayment of loans, payment of salaries, pension, transfer of funds, and issuance of mini-bank statements, among others.

The agent also facilitates new account opening, credit and debit card application, cheque book request and collection and is linked to Equity Bank’s systems electronically, eliminating the need for the commercial bank to have a branch in Ruaka to do business.

This is being replicated across the country, especially in rural areas, with Equity Bank saying that already 1,000 banking agents have started operating.

The Central Bank has licensed four banks, including Equity, to carry out agent banking business and approved 8,809 specific agents since last year.

Should the remaining over 7,000 agents roll out their services as expected early in the year, then this would deeply boost penetration of banking services in the country even as banks eliminate costs on physical branch expansion in areas with low volumes.

Agents may be able to play a role in a broad range of services, including account opening, cash-in and cash-out services (including cash disbursement of bank-approved loans and repayment collection), payment and transfer services (including international remittances and person-to-person domestic transfers), and perhaps even credit underwriting.

A major obstacle to financial inclusion is cost—not only the cost incurred by banks in servicing low value accounts and extending banking infrastructure to un-derserved, low-income areas, but also the cost incurred by poor customers (in terms of time and expense) in reaching bank branches. Achieving financial inclusion therefore requires innovative business models that dramatically reduce costs for everyone and thus pave the way to profitable extension of financial services to the world’s poor.

India's National Innovation Council

There is much we can learn from India on innovation (viewed as the transformation of knowledge into goods and services for the marketplace).  Realising that innovation is the engine for the growth of prosperity and national competitiveness in the 21st century, the President of India declared 2010 as the ‘Decade of Innovation’. To take this agenda forward, the Office of Adviser to the PM on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations (PIII) developed a national strategy on innovation with a focus on an Indian model of inclusive growth. The idea is to create an indigenous model of development suited to Indian needs and challenges.

Towards this end, the Prime Minister has approved the setting up of a National Innovation Council (NIC) under the Chairmanship of Mr. Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the PM on PIII to discuss, analyse and help implement strategies for inclusive innovation in India and prepare a Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020. NIC would be the first step in creating a crosscutting system which will provide mutually reinforcing policies, recommendations and methodologies to implement and boost innovation performance in the country.

One of the outcomes of this process has been a proposal to set up 14 new “universities for innovation” that will aim at stimulating economic growth.  Africa can learn a lot from India’s experiences, especially in regard to the importance of bringing technical knowledge to bear on development through a new species of universities.  These universities will aim at doing for India in the 21st century what its institutes of technology did in the last century.  India is showing Africa that the secret of economic success is not a secret: it lays in re-inventing the university system.

Africa should therefore no longer be an enclave reserved for mineral and raw material extraction.  There is alot of potential in the African continent however the limiting factors include Africa’s low level of training in engineering sciences and the lack of venture capital to turn ideas of products for the marketplace. On education, a new generation of technology/innovation schools directly linked to the productive sector, will be an effective way to move to the frontiers of technological innovation.

Useful discussion on innovation in Africa can be accessed here.

Predictions: The Next BRICs and EAGLEs

There is much debate about the economic or political merits of South Africa's invitation to join the BRIC group of countries. The term BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) was invented in 2001 by Economist Jim O’Neill, now the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. While path-breaking when coined, the concept of BRIC seems outdated today given increased growth differential among the four countries and given that the grouping is also not considered a structural concept since it depends on a country’s growth projections. 

Which countries were predicted to be the next BRICs? Goldman Sachs identified the Next 11 (N-11) countries that could rival the G7 over time, in the context of several important BRICs themes: energy, infrastructure, urbanisation, human capital and technology. The N-11 include Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam. 

Meanwhile, a new group of countries have been coined EAGLESs by BBVA. The EAGLEs, which stands for Emerging and Growth-Leading Economies include the four giant economies (China, India, Brazil and Russia) but also six more countries, namely Korea, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, Egypt and Taiwan. 

BBVA has also identified the Next 11 Eagles which which have common characteristics with the EAGLEs and could be included if their growth prospects (already very positive generally) improved in coming years. The 11 countries in the Nest are: Nigeria, Poland, South Africa, Thailand, Colombia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Argentina, Peru and Philippines.

Some facts about the EAGLEs:

In terms of the criterion for inclusion, each of these ten countries are expected to contribute more to global GDP growth than the average of the countries which have long been considered the most relevant ones worldwide, namely the G7.

In other words, EAGLE countries are chosen because they will be the most relevant in terms of new generated business. The EAGLEs are expected to be responsible for 50% of all global growth in the next 10 years. That compares with 14% for the G7.

This is not only about China or the BRICS. The EAGLEs countries outside the BRICS will grow by almost 4 trillion the next decade, equivalent to 10% of world growth. That compares with 2.4 trillions for the aggregate of Japan, Germany, UK, France, Canada and Italy (six percent of world growth).

From an African perspective, Egypt appears to have made both lists (Next BRIC and EAGLE) while Nigeria was identified as a Next BRIC and potential EAGLE. Meanwhile South Africa was identified as a potential EAGLE but may now be the newest Member of the BRIC group.

US and India on Partnering with Africa

Recent discussion by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on how India and the US could partner with Africa to foster its development. This is relevant because foreign investors interested in Africa are facing similar risks and opportunities to those they faced when investing in India. African countries could therefore learn from India’s successful economic reforms in service and industrial sectors which helped it achieve an impressive growth rate for several years. 

Some useful ideas from this discussion include:

India can contribute to Africa’s development by sharing its experiences in mobilizing human capital and social policy innovation, such as the ongoing large-scale rural employment program launched in India in 2006. In fiscal year 2009/10 alone, it provided employment to 52.5 million rural households. India can help Africa produce high tech yet low cost goods that are within the purchasing power of the African people.

India’s Green Revolution transformed the country from a food deficit nation into a food self-sufficient country. The introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds, increased use of fertilizers, and improved irrigation helped to increase agricultural productivity in India, leading to self-sufficiency in food grains. It also helped India to effectively address famines. This revolution is similar to what happened in China.

Foreign investors need to diversify from energy investment in Africa and investment needs be increased in non-energy sectors as well.

The US government and the private sector could consider public-private partnerships in order to reduce investment risks while making investments in Africa. This could also be done by developing tax incentives and credits for US investors in Africa (see previous post on this here).

On financing, U.S. banks are risk-averse and less willing to finance businesses in Africa, which creates a financing problem for U.S. businesses interested in doing business in Africa. However, European banks have been more forthcoming in financing investment in Africa. A possible proposed solution in this regard could be increased support from the Overseas Private Investment  Corporation (OPIC) in the US.

EPAs: Of what significance Multilaterally?

My article published on Tralac Website (original dated January 2008)

January 2008 ushered in useful milestones. Seven EPAs are reportedly in place, of which six are coined interim EPAs and therefore earmarked for further negotiations while the Caribbean-EC EPA has been crowned the full comprehensive EPA. All agreements have met the core objective, which is to conclude WTO compatible trade in goods agreements under Article XXIV and have thereby prevented trade disruption on the part of ACP States. EPAs have also provided the EU private sector with historic market access opportunities into some of the poorest countries in the world. Nonetheless, with additional negotiations anticipated in six EPA regions, the Cotonou Agreement preparatory period is far from over. Additionally, the repercussions of these agreements both regionally and at the WTO are not encouraging. 

The new EPA environment has been birthed amidst controversy and ingenuity. The conclusion of interim EPA or full comprehensive EPA has further compounded confusion as to the legal basis for additional negotiations, when in fact both EPAs meet the Cotonou Agreement core objective of WTO compatibility in trade in goods. GATT Article XXIV technically only differentiates between fully liberalised FTAs and interim tariff dismantling FTAs, while WTO practice finds that almost none of the near 300 regional trade agreements notified under Article XXIV to the WTO RTA Committee, have been notified as interim agreements. In practice however, interim EPAs are expected to rapidly migrate beyond goods into full comprehensive EPAs, by concluding on a range of rules, some of which the WTO has not even considered, such as the Singapore issues. 

This migration plunges ACP States into a minefield of multilaterally unregulated trade territory and one with almost no disciplines for regional trade agreements. The graduation of the interim EPA also moves against the negotiating procedures of the Cotonou Agreement Article 37, which mandates that EPAs would progressively eliminate barriers in accordance with relevant WTO rules. Furthermore, the development objective of negotiations in areas the WTO has not even considered remains questionable given various documented research findings that comprehensive EPAs would not support the development objectives of many poor countries. Nonetheless, taking into account the limited to non-existent negotiating capacity including incoherent regional participation in some EPA regions which dismally constitute only one or two ACP countries, its not clear how or whether the additional negotiations scheduled for 2008 would be consummated on the part of the ACP EPA Parties. 

At the WTO, reciprocal parties to FTAs with developed countries will for the first time include LDCs, in essence contradicting the developmental arguments put forth in the Doha Round by the poorest countries. The same can be said of the Small Economies whose vulnerabilities have been acknowledged by trade and development experts globally and considered in the Doha negotiations. On this basis, the role of the WTO in the area of development could be eventually eroded as the negotiating positions and coalitions among developing and LDCs are thrown into further disarray and possible fragmentation.

The second phase of EPA negotiations could also potentially worsen what is already an uncomfortable situation in trade in goods both in the regional and WTO context. Regionally EPAs may provide EC goods access into the wider ACP markets. At the WTO, EPAs appear to have compromised the potential development benefits of the Doha Round, given concluded provisions reverse some of the Doha negotiating positions of developing countries. These include EPA commitments even by LDCs, to reduce up to 80% of tariffs, to eliminate export taxes and other useful development tools. Further negotiations with the EC, before the conclusion of the Doha round could further detract from development objectives of developing countries and their negotiating leverage at the WTO. 

Additionally, future negotiations on the development dimension of Article XXIV may have been compromised by these agreements. It remains doubtful if the threshold for substantially all trade even for LDCs will be reviewed or whether additional flexibilities for developing countries under GATT Article XXIV will be permissible in the WTO negotiations, beyond that agreed upon in the EPAs. 

Finally, EPAs may essentially determine or provide advance impetus for a possible agenda for the next round of multilateral trade negotiations. This agenda may include the formerly rejected Singapore issues such as investment, competition, public procurement, among other areas now agreed as part of the interim EPA, but not presently regulated by the WTO. If the interim EPAs are fully concluded by most ACP States, this may compromise future multilateral negotiations, when these issues do come under the ambit of the WTO. 

ACP States and the EU Members combined, constitute close to two thirds of the 150 WTO Membership. So far about half the ACP membership has concluded an EPA with the EC, with more ACP countries likely to do so to safeguard their regional integration efforts. Which raises the question; what impact could EPAs have on the multilateral trade and development agenda as a whole?

South-South trade risks reinforcing Africa's commodity dependence

This is Africa By Peter Guest | Published: 18 June, 2010

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has warned that trade flows between Africa and industrialising players in the “Global South” are currently reinforcing the longstanding trend that sees Africa export unprocessed commodities and import manufactured goods.

In its annual 2010 Economic Development in Africa Report, UNCTAD says that this trend needs to be reversed while the South-South relationship remains in its early stages. Companies and sovereign investors from China, India and Brazil are all investing heavily into Africa across a variety of sectors, but minerals, hydrocarbons and agricultural products continue to attract the most interest. These relationships need to be managed in order that they result in economic diversification in African countries, the report recommends.

Africa’s total merchandise trade with non-African developing countries rose from $97bn in 2004 to $283bn in 2008, the report says. For the first time, trade with this group of countries outstripped trade with the European Union. The number of greenfield foreign investment projects by investors from non-African developing countries was 184 in 2008, compared to 52 in 2004.

Chinese total merchandise trade with Africa increased from $25bn in 2004 to $93bn in 2008, according to the report. Over the same period, the continent’s trade with India increased from $9bn to $31bn and with Brazil from $8bm to $23bn.Aside from the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – relationships between other emerging nations, including South Korea and Turkey, and Africa, look likely to take on greater prominence.

While trade is taking on traditional patterns, foreign direct investment from the rest of the developing world into Africa is, to some extent, having a more positive effect on diversification, according to the report’s author, Charles Gore.

“What you see from the trade flows is that that is reinforcing commodity dependence. What you see from the FDI is a more mixed picture. Some of it is going into extractive industries, but a lot of the new Chinese investment, small and medium enterprises, is actually market-seeking,” Mr Gore says. “That’s tended to have a pattern where they first go in as traders but then they start producing there locally, and now they’re starting to cluster to get the benefits of being located closer to each other.”

Official finance is also following new patterns. The majority of developing world official development assistance is directed to infrastructure, with some, notably that of Brazil, also being used for technology transfer.

China is also becoming the most significant bilateral source of support to African infrastructure and production, rising from $470m in 2001 to $4.5bn in 2007. With a slowdown in growth in the developed world prompting concerns of reductions in Western ODA, these relationships are likely to increase in importance.

The report recommends that African governments play a more active role in managing the support and investment that they are receiving from the Global South. This means that their focus should not be on simply attracting FDI from other developing countries, but on directing investment into sectors which will promote development. “What we emphasise is developmental leadership. I think the approach of the new Southern partners is encouraging this more developmental approach to governance.”

Climate Change and Africa’s Food Deficit

"Africa is now facing the same type of long-term food deficit problem that India faced in the early 1960s". This is according to a Study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) which recommends that Africa should spend more on Agriculture in order to avert a possible crisis. Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) food deficit is also increasingly compounded by climate change. In fact, one-third of the African population lives in drought-prone areas while two-thirds of SSA’s surface area is desert or dry land. The major impact of climate change on food security includes changes in precipitation and insulation, changes in the length of growing seasons and changes in carbon uptake. Additionally there are declines in agricultural yields, decline in the quality of pasture and livestock production, and reduced vegetation cover which place local people at risk of famine.

Climate change also affects rain-fed agriculture which is the main safety net of poor people in rural areas where agriculture employs about 70 percent of the population. The rain related challenges can either cause drought or floods and the maps shown (Source: World Bank Development Report 2010) indicates the countries likely to be affected by either.

Despite the fact that most people in SSA are engaged in agriculture, its productivity has stagnated for several years across the whole sub-region making the region a net food importer. In fact, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) list for 2010 of Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries (LIFDC) - 44 of the 77 low income food deficit countries in the world are in Africa.

An example is the disappearance of Lake Chad over a 40 year period as shown in the image (source: GRID Arendal UNEP). Lake Chad is shared by Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger and its disappearance is a grim reminder of the dramatic ecological challenges and food shortages that lie ahead. The lake's area has decreased by 80 per cent over the last four decades, with catastrophic impacts on those reliant on its resources. Lake Victoria is receding as well and projected reductions in the rivers in the Nile region signal difficult times ahead. 

Another dimension is that of water, storage and infrastructure. Most rivers cross more than one country, necessitating effective cooperation across borders. Africa’s 63 transboundary river basins together account for 90 percent of its surface water resources necessitating regional water control systems.  Armed conflict further complicates agriculture and climate change risk management. For poor people living in weak or unstable states, climate change will deepen hunger, suffering, and intensify the risks of food insecurity, mass migration, violent conflict, and further fragility.

According to a World Bank Publication, by 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa will need to feed more people in a harsher climate. Agriculture will simply have to become more productive, getting more crop per drop while protecting ecosystems. Water resources need to be managed better by scaling up existing infrastructure to manage watersheds, rainfed agriculture and protecting forests. Improved planning for storage, power transmission, and irrigation including screening investments for climate risks will also be necessary. Countries will need to develop mechanisms for collaboration across sectors and countries.

There is a role for innovation and academic research institutions as well. This could be done by adopting simple technologies suitable for small farmers such as low-cost drip irrigation and storage of rainwater. African farmers should also be helped to work with new crop varieties. One example is "New Rice for Africa" (Nerica), an Asian-African hybrid developed in Africa with support from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), that combines drought resistance with high yields and high protein content. 

NERICA, the new rice variety was the result of years of work by a team of plant breeders and particularly Sierra Leonean molecular scientist Monty Jones at the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA – now the Africa Rice Center). When Dr. Jones (a 2004 winner of the WFP) set up the biotechnology research program in 1991, some 240 million people in West Africa were dependant on rice as their primary source of food energy and protein, but the majority of Africa’s rice was imported, at an annual cost of US$1 billion. According to WIPO, the most popular Nerica rice takes only three months to ripen, as opposed to six months for the parent species, thus allowing African farmers to “double crop” it in a single growing season with nutritionally rich vegetables or high-value fiber crops. 

Meanwhile in 2009, Dr. Gebisa Ejeta of Ethiopia, was the recipient of the World Food Prize for his sorghum hybrids which are resistant to drought and the devastating Striga weed and which has dramatically increased the production and availability of one of the world’s five principal grains and enhanced the food supply of hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa.

Overall, a Climate Strategy for Africa and food security should also include: sustainable land and forest management; increased knowledge and analytical capacity, improved weather forecasting, research, extension services, market infrastructure and renewal energy generation systems. Farmers will also need to benefit from integrating biodiversity into the landscape and reducing carbon emissions from soil and deforestation.

The Green Wall of the Sahara and Sahel

going green... 


The Sahara desert experiences one of the harshest weather conditions in the world. The very dry, sandy winds and hot weather conditions certainly affect trade output and patterns in this region. For instance as sand dunes move, they bury villages, roads, oases, crops, irrigation channels and dams, causing major economic damage and increasing poverty and food insecurity.This groundbreaking transcontinental project tries to address this.

African nations on the desert border south of the Sahara are taking action to halt the march of sands by creating a great wall of green. They are contributing to the prevention of desert advancement and the development of the Saharo-Sahelian zones in order to ensure sustainable natural resource management and poverty reduction.

The “Great Green Wall” project is largely a multi-species vegetal belt 15 km wide that will link Dakar and Djibouti and stretch over a distance of about 7000 km. However it won’t be a continuous band of trees, but may be rerouted if necessary to avoid obstacles (streams, rocky terrains, mountains and rock hills) or go through inhabited areas, stretching from Mauritania in the west to Djibouti in the east.

The initiative will be a set of cross-sectoral actions and interventions aimed at the conservation and protection of natural resources with a view to achieving development and particularly, alleviating poverty. The trees however will be "drought-adapted species", preferably native to the areas planted, and so far about 37 suitable species have been identified. 

The African Union officially adopted the Great Green Wall initiative in December 2006 as one of the pillars of a rural strategy which reconciles development and environment. At the 8th common session of the Conference of the Heads of State and Government held in January 2007, the African Union adopted Declaration 137 VIII approving the Initiative "Green Great wall of Sahara. "

The plan benefits from Africa-EU Climate Change Partnership support and is implemented in collaboration with the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD). The Project has been in the works for several years with sources indicating funding difficulties and concerns regarding its maintenance. Nonetheless, it is expected that tree planting will soon begin. The great green belt will be 7000km long and 15km wide, at a cost $3 million to plant. The west-most section will be planted in Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal, while the eastern section will be planted in Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan.


Being a transboundary Programme, the implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative would require some degree of policy harmonization for the implementation of issues such as transboundary range, ecosystems, water management and joint afforestation programmes. The participating countries would need to review their relevant policies and legislation to accommodate community involvement in environmental resources management and ownership of the benefits. 

Meanwhile the Food and Agriculture Organization has recently published a manual featuring a project in Mauritania which successfully fixed dunes and stopped sand encroachment. Sand encroachment is what happens when grains of sand are carried by winds and collect in dunes on the coast, along watercourses and on cultivated or uncultivated land.

According to a Study by the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS), the threat prosed by desertification is particularly acute in Africa, one of the continents most affected by the processes and impacts of land degradation and the deterioration of the communities' living conditions, particularly in the CEN-SAD area characterized by climate ranging from hyper-arid to dry sub-humid. 

Livelihoods in the countries located in this sub-region are heavily dependent on soil, water and vegetation resources, which have become increasingly fragile due to the mounting pressure being exerted on them.