Strengthening the PAGGW-BirdLife International/VBN partnership

As part of strengthening the Collaboration Agreement signed between the two institutions, a delegation from BirdLife International and its partner Vogelbescherming (VBN) carried out a working mission at the headquarters of the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall (PAGGW). The BirdLife International-VBN delegation was led by Mr. Geoffroy Citegetse, Manager of the East Atlantic Flyway, accompanied by Mr. Jaime Garcia Moreno (VBN/Netherlands), Head of the International Programme, Partner, and Mr. Djibril Diallo, Executive Director of the NGO Nature Mauritanie, BirdLife’s partner in Mauritania.

The delegation was received by the Executive Secretary of the PAGGW, Prof. Abdoulaye DIA, who welcomed them. In his address, the Executive Secretary particularly commended the delegation for the interest shown in this mutual collaboration. He stressed the importance of taking biodiversity into account in the actions implementing the Great Green Wall and the full readiness of the PAGGW to ensure the success of this collaboration.

As part of this visit, the delegation held two (2) days of work with the team of the PAGGW’s Scientific and Technical Directorate on Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 February 2020.

The work took place in the PAGGW’s meeting room between BirdLife International technicians and those of the PAGGW.
The discussions covered matters relating to the planning of joint actions under the PAGGW-BirdLife International cooperation agreement, in particular:

• the mapping of wetlands within the Great Green Wall corridor;
• the formulation of a project taking into account the promotion of birds and their habitats in the Great Green Wall, for the attention of the G20 countries;
• the development of a project to be submitted to the Green Climate Fund;
• the formulation of a project for the member countries common to both the Great Green Wall and ECOWAS (Fouta Djallon);
• The organization of a PAGGW-Member States-BirdLife-VBN meeting.

A draft roadmap was developed for the actions to be carried out in 2020, setting out the roles and responsibilities of each institution. A joint regional project between the two institutions, worth 25 million dollars, was developed and will be submitted to partners for funding.