GAMS — Gums for Adaptation and Mitigation in Sudan

Gums for Adaptation and Mitigation in Sudan (GAMS) is a $10.0M project (USD 9,975,000 in Green Climate Fund grant financing) approved by the GCF Board on 13 November 2020 and made effective on 25 November 2021, implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in partnership with Sudan's Forest National Corporation and Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources, covering North, West and South Kordofan — the heart of Sudan's traditional gum arabic belt, part of Africa's Great Green Wall.
The project targets climate-resilient gum-arabic agroforestry and reforestation on 125,000 hectares plus restoration of 151,000 hectares of degraded rangeland (275,000 ha total), rehabilitation of livestock corridors, and capacity-building for 500 gum arabic producer associations (GAPAs), aiming to avoid an estimated 9.23 million tonnes of CO2e and to benefit 1.58 million people by its 2028 completion date. Gum arabic trees already provide up to 38% of smallholder income in the region, per FAO reporting.
As of the most recent public GCF disbursement tracker, only around 20% of financing had been disbursed. Implementation now runs through Sudan's civil war, which began in April 2023 and has severely disrupted state institutions and rural livelihoods nationally — a major, still unquantified risk to delivery that is not reflected in GCF's public reporting. No independent (non-FAO/GCF) field verification of on-the-ground progress was found, so this practice is scored on its funding and design rigor rather than confirmed impact.

Read the full analysis: https://resoilfoundation.org/en/environment/sudan-soil-acacia-gum-arabic/