Healthy soil is the foundation of resilient landscapes, sustainable food systems, and climate adaptation in Africa’s drylands. As a unifying element across climate, nutrition, biodiversity, and restoration agendas, soil health plays a critical role in realising the ambitions of the African Union’s Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI). With over 65% of productive land degraded and soil erosion undermining agricultural productivity, smallholder farmers across the continent face compounding vulnerabilities. The GGWI Strategy (2024–2034) recognises soil health as central to reversing land degradation and building long-term resilience, aligning closely with the Africa Fertiliser and Soil Health Action Plan (AFSH-AP) (2023 – 2033) and broader goals outlined in the Ten-Year Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Strategy and Action Plan (2026-2035).

Key messages

• There is urgency to invest in landscape restoration and soil health.

• A continental, systematic monitoring framework can fill knowledge gaps on the impacts of the interventions including the link between management, productivity, diversity and soil health.

• We have the tools to monitor landscape health, combining systematic data collection, citizen science and remote sensing.

• Opportunities to collaborate across donors, projects, initiatives to scale investments and create robust, long-term datasets across diverse sites.