A 1,500-kilometre “Green Dam” across Algeria’s dry steppe is set to gain new support as the country prepares to restore damaged land and help rural families cope with a changing climate.
The Green Climate Fund has approved two projects worth a combined $184.8 million in Algeria and Mexico, with support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The decisions were announced at the fund’s 46th Board meeting in Songdo, Republic of Korea. The projects aim to cut or capture greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen climate resilience and support food security in rural areas. For Algeria, the funding marks the country’s first project backed by the Green Climate Fund.
Algeria’s seven-year initiative will build on the Green Dam, launched in 1971 to slow desertification and protect steppe and rangelands. It will work across 454,138 hectares in six provinces, where more than half of Algeria’s nomadic population lives. The project is expected to reach more than one million people and directly support over 142,000 farmers, herders and pastoralists. More than a third of those directly supported are women.
Plans include restoring more than 59,000 hectares of degraded forests, rangelands, dunes and farmland. The project will provide 190 solar energy kits to isolated rural and agro-pastoral households, helping them power refrigeration, processing and other productive work. It will also install 240 hydroponic forage units, which grow animal feed without soil and can provide year-round supplies for more than 25,000 livestock.
The project will help rural residents access financing for small businesses, with at least half of the supported micro-enterprises expected to be led by women. It will also promote climate-resilient products and supply chains linked to prickly pear cactus, olives, rosemary, wool, alfa grass and peppermint. By the end of the project, these actions are expected to reduce or capture 540,355 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Across the project’s full lifetime, the expected total is more than 1.8 million tonnes.
The Green Climate Fund is providing a $43 million grant for Algeria, while the government is contributing $56.5 million. The fund’s Chief Investment Officer, Amer Baig, said the government’s share shows how national leadership can support ecosystem repair and rural livelihoods. FAO will oversee the project’s technical, financial and administrative work alongside Algeria’s General Directorate of Forests.
In Mexico, the approved project will recognize about 13 million tonnes of emissions reductions already achieved and reinvest proceeds in forest protection and more sustainable livestock practices. The source announcement describes this as a way to reward results while addressing causes of deforestation. It does not provide further project details or a separate funding breakdown.
Together, the two investments connect climate action with the daily needs of people who depend on healthy land. In Algeria, restored landscapes, solar power and steady animal feed are designed to strengthen both livelihoods and ecosystems. The work now moves from approval to implementation, building on decades of effort to protect the Green Dam and offering rural communities more tools to face harsher, drier conditions.