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Saving the Sahel (Part 1)

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by Richard Maltzman, Dave Shirley

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In a recent post, I blogged about the Great Green Wall of China.

Today I would like to start a series about another ongoing Program called the Great Green Wall of Africa (more formally the Great Green Wall Initiative).

This Program is in the Sahel region of Africa (see map below) and is described well in an article from National Geographic.

Here's a quick summary for that article:

In recent years, northern Africa has seen the quality of land significantly due to and poor land management. Land degradation stems from human-related and natural factors, including unsustainable farming practices, , climate change and . Land degradation contributes to the loss of and ; more than 9,000 plants and animal species are considered endangered as a result. Land degradation also poses serious threats to agricultural productivity, , and quality of life.

Nowhere is the threat of land degradation more urgent than in the Sahel, where millions of people live on land undergoing , the most extreme form of land degradation. Without action to combat it, desertification will continue to drive people to migrate away from the Sahel. In 2020 alone, more than 2.5 million people in the Sahel region were displaced.

The Sahel region, by the way, is a vast semi-arid transitional zone in North-Central Africa, stretching between the Sahara Desert to the north and the tropical savannas to the south. Acting as an ecological and climatic buffer, the word Sahel - ironically - comes from the Arabic sāḥil, (الساحل) meaning "coast" or "shore" (even though it's all about a desert).

The Great Green Wall: a brief description

The Great Green Wall Initiative is an African-led environmental restoration program launched by the African Union in 2007 to combat desertification, climate change, food insecurity, and poverty across the Sahel region of Africa. Originally envisioned as a continuous “wall” of trees, the initiative has evolved into a broader effort focused on restoring ecosystems, improving sustainable agriculture, and strengthening community resilience.

The initiative stretches approximately 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) across the width of Africa, from Senegal on the Atlantic coast to Djibouti on the Red Sea, involving more than 20 countries. Its goals include restoring 100 million hectares of degraded land, capturing 250 million tons of carbon, and creating 10 million green jobs across one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions.

It was designed as a long-term initiative with major targets tied to 2030.

But what is it? Project, Program, Portfolio? This is a naming problem we generally have in our discipline. I have seen this as a problem in my own background as a practitioner and continue to see confusion over these terms as I create and teach Project Management (or Program... or Portfolio Management) courses.

It's not a project...

A project:

has a defined beginning and end
produces a specific deliverable
is relatively bounded in scope

The Great Green Wall is:

multinational
multi-decade
continuously evolving
composed of many independent efforts
strategically adaptive

It’s far too broad and complex to be considered a single project. I would call it a very large Program.

The Africa Great Green Wall (GGW) is a fascinating case because it looks very different depending on whether you assess it as:

an environmental vision,
a geopolitical initiative,
or a project/program management effort.

So: how is this Program doing?

In the remainder of this post (and continuing with more) I will provide an assessment of how the Program is doing as measured by classic PM measurements (scope, cost, time, risk, success metrics). I think there are learning opportunities simply by seeing how these do (and do not) apply to a large sustainability program.

When I teach my PM courses, I try to convey the idea that although the "triple constraint' elements interweave and are interdependent and overlapping, generally the flow is first Scope, then Schedule, and then Cost. In other words we need to know what's in an initiative, and only then can you sequence tasks and milestones, and only then can you really determine costs. Agree or not, I am going to follow that order in my assessment of this sustainability program.

The Great Green Wall of Africa - Scope Performance
Scope Definition
Originally:
“A wall of trees across Africa.”
Later evolved (I would say massively scope-crept) into:

ecosystem restoration
sustainable agriculture
climate resilience
economic development
peacebuilding
food security

Assessment of the Great Green Wall

Status: Massive Scope Expansion
The project experienced major scope evolution [scope creep and upscope {consciously-accepted inclusion of new scope}].

Positive side of this growth of scope:

broader ecological realism
greater adaptability
more stakeholder relevance

Negative side:

harder to measure success
diluted accountability
increased governance complexity
vague deliverables

My thoughts:
The initiative transitioned from a deliverable-driven program to a (much more ambitious) transformation program. This ambition was well-intentioned, but weakened measurability.

In the next post of the series - Schedule and Cost of the Great Green Wall Initiative

Posted by Richard Maltzman on: May 24, 2026 11:06 PM | Permalink

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Saving the Sahel (Part 1)

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