Environment and social affairs

Koyly Alpha, Senegal- Assiatou Ba, part of the Women's Association of Koyly, pulls weeds from seedlings that will be planted in a parcel contributing the Great Green Wall Project in Koyly Alpha, Senegal on Friday, August 2, 2019. Two hundred women belong to the "Nanandiral Antent Koyly" (the Women's Association of Koyly) and care for tens of thousands of seedlings that will be planted over 5 hectares in the region. They are paid 55.000CFA per season and planted 71,650 seedlings this past season alone with a 42% survival rate. The Great Green Wall project is an $8 billion plan to plant drought resistant trees along 4,815 miles across the edge of the Sahara desert, an effort to combat the diminishing Sahel. Launched in 2007, the project not only hopes to combat decades of abuse and climate change related droughts, but to educate and employ those who are hardest hit.