During the 2014 World Day To Combat Desertification, commemorated on 17 June it was disclosed that several millions of Cameroonians are affected by desertification with about 2 million of these in the north-west.

It has also emerged that five of Cameroon’s ten regions notably Far North, North Adamawa, North West And West are today affected by desertification. Though Cameroon has a national plan to combat desertification, it has never been put to use.

During a recent visit to Cameroon ,the Coordinator of the Great Green Wall For The Sahara And Sahel Initiative of The African Union in Addis Ababa ,Ethiopia ,Cameroonian born Elvis Paul Nfor Tangem said the African Union has solutions to Cameroon’s growing desertification problems, adding that government needs to act now to benefit from available opportunities to bring the situation under control.

He spoke to The Sun’s Aminateh Nkemngu in Bamenda. Read on:

Q: Thanks for accepting to talk to The Sun. We would like to begin by asking you to tell us about yourself.

A: I am Elvis Paul Tangem Nfor, a Cameroonian currently working as coordinator of the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel Initiative of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Prior to that, I was here .I started various initiatives such as The Cameroon Traditional Rulers Against Climate Change, CAMTRACC, and the Parliamentarians Network Against Climate Change which is now very big.

That was when Rose Abunaw was Vice President of the National Assembly, the Watershed Task Group with big NGOs in Littoral focusing in the Wouri and Maritime areas of Cameroon. I am not new to the town. Apart from those initiatives, I also worked for the FAO in Cameroon and the DRC as technical adviser. After 3 years, l left for Tree Aid International , a British NGO working in Sahel Africa.

I was based in Burkina Faso intervening in Ghana, Mali and Niger as Enterprise Support Manager. Six months ago, I was appointed at the African Union Commission to head the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel Initiative which is a programme that will go on for a very long time.

Q: What is the Great Green Wall Initiative for The Sahara And Sahel All About?

A: It is a pan African initiative started by former president Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and spearheaded by former president Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. They put the initiative in very simple terms; that they wanted to stop the advancement of the Sahara desert.

And their idea was to plant trees 17,700 km by 17.7 km that is from Dakar to Djibouti. That area forms the threshold of the Sahara desert. The initiative started in 2005 and, in 2007 the heads of state of the member states of the African Union accepted it as a pan African programme.

Since then it has been managed by technical and financial partners of the African Union like the FAO, the World Bank, Global Mechanism and other main partners.

The African Union as initiator was intervening at policy level, not implementation. After five years an evaluation was done and they decided to recruit a coordinator .I was appointed in November 2013 and started work in February 2014.It has evolved to include sustainable land and water management programme.

It is a holistic and integrated approach from conservation to land management ,livelihood, agro forestry ,climate change amongst other things that go to fight desertification and climate change So far we have 13 focal countries including Bukina Faso, Eritrea Algeria, Southern Sudan , Mali ,Niger Senegal, Togo, Benin, Egypt ,Somali Chad and Ethiopia .We work with proposals from national governments by looking at their national desertification programmes. Cameroon has one but is not in the programme despite having serious desertification and land degradation problems.

So far, a lot has been done especially in Senegal. Abdoulaye Wade took it upon itself to create the pan African Agency for the Great Green Wall which is now a specialized agency of the African Union acting as an implementing body now.

Q: You are a Cameroonian and coordinator of the initiative. How can you explain the fact that your country is not part of it?

A: It is unfortunate Cameroon is not part .They should be. The first day I got into the commission, I realized that we were not part .The three northern regions, even the North West region suffer from land degradation that leads to advancement of desert. When you look around the North West, there are lots of small deserts. Those small patches of forest will eventually link up to the Sahel.

When we destroy in the middle and periphery they link up and create desertification .I have met high ranking members of the Cameroon government and had the opportunity to meet ministers. They are very interested. I had engaged some of them and we agreed to meet. We are organizing a meeting in Cameroon soon.

The second African Dry Land Week will take place in Chad in August this year and I hope to involve Cameroonians in it.

Q: From cop 15 to various climate change meetings, Africa is the unfortunate victim. What is the Great Green Wall Initiative doing to help Africa in This Direction?

A: As far as climate change negotiations are concerned, it is the au that is responsible. You can say we have not really gained.

At the level of the AU, the fact that Africa is now talking as one voice is important. Africa’s problems cannot be solved by finances from outside. The fact that we are not getting money from out side is a blessing in disguise because we can start acting on our own. The Great Green Wall Initiative is a resume of all UN conventions on climate change.

Q: You are talking about solutions and other persons are committing the same crime. How sustainable is this initiative then?

A: It is not about who is right or wrong. They say there is nothing as strong as an idea whose time has come. We also contribute. They, I mean the big western industrialized countries and China polluted and accepted and are changing. The only thing we can do is to know that we in Africa rely on nature our economy, livelihood and others. We have rain fed agriculture, earth roads; children don’t go to school when it rains. Nowadays rain is scarce.

Q: So what will happen to us if we don’t act?

A: We cannot sit down and point fingers .We need to work. We recognize big polluters like US and china. They are making efforts, but it takes time .We can adapt our economies faster than them. Cameroon just stopped the use of plastics. That is big . I also saw that in Rwanda.