La Grande muraille verte au Sahel : entre ambitions globales et ancrage local

Abstract

-La Grande muraille verte est le nom d'un programme de lutte contre la désertification lancé en 2005 sous l'égide de l'Union africaine et des organisations ouest-africaines et sahéliennes. L'approche géographique et critique proposée montre l'intérêt de la variation d'échelle pour analyser un objet multidimensionnel et multiacteurs. Elle met en tension les relations qui existent entre la reproduction par les États sahéliens de techniques anciennes de lutte contre la désertification, les nouvelles opportunités politiques et financières offertes par la gouvernance globale de l'environnement, et l'insuffisant ancrage local des aménagements dans les territoires ciblés par le projet à travers le cas sénégalais.

The Great Green Wall as a Social-Technical Imaginary

“…While there is already a rich, long-standing, and well-documented literature on desertification and reforestation in the Sahel, there is now an increasing number of articles focusing exclusively on the GGWI (Boëtsch et al 2019;Macia et al 2023;Mugelé 2018;Turner et al 2021). One can divide the literature across two major lines of enquiry, in terms of political ecology and in terms of critical development studies.…”

“…In this light, the GGWI may be seen as a megaproject (Flyvbjerg 2014), too complex to exist, but too hoped for to be abandoned. Mugelé (2018), for instance, sees the Great Green Wall as a fetish of development in the age of environmental globalisation and an example of the growing role of the environment in contemporary development thinking.…”

“…It was essentially a very top-down, state-centric view, especially around the Ministry of Environment and the armed divisions of Water and Forestry, who are also responsible for the protection of national parks. Mugelé (2018) argued, in fact, that the GGW was a political ids.ac.uk…”

The Great Green Wall in Senegal: questioning the idea of acceleration through the conflicting temporalities of politics and nature among the Sahelian populations

“…In June 2005, during the seventh Summit of Leaders and Heads of State of the Community of Sahelo-Saharan States, the GGW program was first mentioned by the Nigerian President Olusegun Obasango. It was decided at the Summit to entrust the Senegalese President at the time, Abdoulaye Wade, to include the GGW program as part of his mandate of the environmental component https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol28/iss1/art31/ of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (e.g., Mugelé 2018). After numerous meetings and working sessions initiated by Senegal from 2005 to 2009, between heads of state, environment ministers, United Nations (UN) agencies (UNCCD and UNEP), experts, and donors, the strategic orientation documents for implementing the GGW (action plan, institutional and implementation frameworks, etc.)…”