Why is China quietly helping Africa build a Great Green Wall across the Sahara?

About two decades ago, African nations launched an audacious plan: a 7,700km “Great Green Wall” to hold back the Sahara Desert’s southward march. Yet years passed and progress was stalled after being plagued by funding shortages, political instability and a lack of scalable solutions.

China, now emerging with advanced ecological engineering capabilities, has stepped into the fray.

At a seminar in Beijing, Lei Jiaqiang, a leading desertification expert with the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, unveiled China’s behind-the-scenes role in Africa’s fight against desertification.

His remarks have offered a rare and detailed look at how Chinese technology, funding and strategic pragmatism are reshaping one of the world’s most ambitious ecological projects – and why Beijing views this as a diplomatic and economic opportunity.

The Sahel, a semi-arid belt stretching from Senegal to Djibouti, has long been ground zero for climate-driven human catastrophe. Decades of drought, deforestation and overgrazing have turned vast stretches into barren wasteland, displacing millions of people and fuelling cycles of poverty and conflict.

The African Union’s Great Green Wall initiative was launched in 2007 and aimed to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million jobs.

Yet by 2020, around just 4 per cent of the target had been met, according to Lei.

  

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