The President of the Republic Praises the Allocation of 10 Billion Dollars to the Great Green Wall

Paris 11/01/2021-(AMI)-His Excellency the President of the Republic, M. Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani has indicated that the international convention against desertification aims to preserve biodiversity, stressing that the fight against desertification, amelioration of life conditions in the rural environment, the achievement of food security, and employments for women and youth are the main goals of desert African countries. The president added Monday morning at the Paris One Planet Summit that the creation of the great green wall target to bring answers to current issues in a way to establish a long term development. Here is the text of the speech: The President of the Republic H.E M. Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouan,i on behalf of himself and his brothers leaders of the countries members of the pan African agency of the Great Green Wall, thanked warmly France, the United Nations and the World Bank for the initiative taken on sides of the One Planet Summit dedicated to investments to the benefit of the sahelian desert Great Green Wall. After a painful 2020 for the whole world which its impacts were very harsh to our populations and economies, this important forum comes in time. My participation, he said at One Planet Sumit and the forum which are debating about important issues of the future of our planet, describes the commitment of my country Mauritania and the region to preserve the biodiversity by putting in action the Pan-African initiative of the great green wall . This initiative is a motive to our sahelian desert states to commit and unite facing the current issues of desertification, land degradation, the loss of biodiversity and climat changes. Strongly dedicated to this subject, my country ratified the united nations convention concerning the fight against desertification and land degradation in August 1996 and registered in the national development strategy the objective number 15 of 2030 agenda which aims at protecting and restoring terrestrial ecosystems and ensuring sustainable management of forests. The fight against desertification, the improvement of life conditions of rural populations, food and energy security, and empowerment of women and youth employment are the main priorities of our sahelian-desert states. We are more than ever convinced that the pan African initiative of the great green wall in addition to the ambitious and multidimensional goals constitute a response to the already cited issues and may provide a rural, inclusive, and sustainable development. The President here hailed the announcement of the initiative accelerator of the great green wall which consists to unblock an initial umbrella sum of 10 billion dollars for the period 2021-2025 to materialize the engagements of financial partners. The mobilization of these additional financings through an innovative approach will certainly contribute to achieving the great green wall goals that target on the horizon of 2030 the restoration of 100 million hectares of degraded land and create 10 millions of jobs. This initiative will without doubt facilitate the constituency of our partners interventions in response to challenges explained by our respective environment Ministers in the previous conference on the great green wall. It will allow our countries access to the necessary funds to increase local investments within the frame work of the five selected pillars and enforce the national agencies of the great green wall. In this context, His Excellency Mr. Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani suggested to each one of our countries to create a biodiversity fund where we submit part of our resources of written off debts, a cancellation that we highly wish. The initiative of the great green wall constitutes for the Sahel region, a strategic and operational frame to promote the emergence of new opportunities of investment in the agro-ecological sector that create sustainable jobs. Also, it is with big interest he added, we welcome today the creation of international movement for the agro-ecology in Africa that manifests the private sector commitment to the latter. He invited all, within the frame of the initiative, to work in cooperation to support the process, participate in the development of Sahel and favour transfer of technologies and know-how to local players in order to develop structured and competitive faculties that preserve biodiversity and natural resources. the President of the Republic stresses that Mauritania, that chose an economy where the private sector is the main growth apparatus, will welcome willing international companies to settle down in our country. I confirm to you, he added, that our private sector is strongly engaged to support the government in its efforts to create a win-win partnership with foreign companies, particularly in the fields of food security and sustainable rural economic development in the faculties of agro-ecology. He noted that Mauritania had made important reforms in the improvement of business climate by promoting public and private sector partnership and adapting judicial laws to international standards. It also exerted a huge effort to rehabilitate its infrastructure level to meet the conditions of a strong sustainable and inclusive growth. He concluded by confirming the engagement of our country in favour of all initiatives aiming at deepening the sub regional integration especially in coordination matters and efforts of cooperation in the fight against desertification and land degradation, to protect and restore our ecosystems. The President of the Republic thanked graciously all those who initiated and participated in the success of the forum dedicated to the investment of the sahelian desert Great Green Wall.