Without the protection of trees and grasses, soil easily becomes a “glacis” – a thin cover of arable land at the mercy of wind and rain.
Since 2010, FAO in collaboration with the European Union (EU) and the Global Mechanism of the UN’s Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCDD), has been supporting the African Union Commission (AUC) and partner countries to promote and further develop the initiative.
For example, action plans are in place in Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal, while those of Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania and Sudan are in the making.