Improving Land and Water Management

The document identifies agroforestry, conservation agriculture, rainwater harvesting, and integrated soil fertility management as key practices to combat land degradation and water stress in Sub-Saharan Africa's drylands. It argues that these practices increase crop yields, income, and climate resilience, and outlines seven strategic pathways—including policy reform, knowledge management, and private sector engagement—to accelerate their adoption.

• Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa's drylands face low crop yields, poverty, and hunger driven by land degradation, depleted soil fertility, water stress, and high fertilizer costs.
• Four specific land and water management practices—agroforestry, conservation agriculture, rainwater harvesting, and integrated soil fertility management—are identified as promising for boosting crop yields and providing benefits like increased firewood, fodder, income, and climate resilience in Sub-Saharan African drylands.
• The paper proposes seven pathways to scale up these practices: strengthening knowledge management, increasing communication/outreach, supporting institutional and policy reforms (especially property rights), capacity building for community-based resource management, supporting integrated landscape management, reinforcing economic incentives/private sector engagement, and mainstreaming investments into food security and climate adaptation programs.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Improving Land and Water Management. https://www.wri.org/research/improving-land-and-water-management

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Improving Land and Water Management. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/improving-land-and-water-management.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Improving Land and Water Management |url=https://www.wri.org/research/improving-land-and-water-management |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendimproving, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Improving Land and Water Management}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/improving-land-and-water-management}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }