In the past four decades, the eastern African highlands have seen rapid population growth and unprecedented land-use changes, increasing the challenge of sustaining resources while providing for a growing population that is dependent on these same quickly depleting resources.The poor coordination among development initiatives and agencies which leads to duplication of efforts, missed opportunity for synergy and lack of sustainability presents a challenge that undermines rural development. This problem is further compounded by decentralization of governance in some eastern African countries.
The World Agroforestry Centre recently launched a book, Integrated Natural Resource Management in the Highlands of East Africa - From Concept to Practice which attempts to address some of these challenges. The publication compiles the main findings of more than a decade of work in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda through the Africa Highlands Initiative. It seeks a solution through a new model that addresses the need to manage complex natural resource in densely settled landscapes where people are highly dependent on diminishing resources.
With 80% of smallholders in Africa owning less than two hectares of land, integrated natural resource management becomes more important to the future of Africa’s population.
According to the authors, population growth and inheritance practices contributed to very small household landholdings, reducing incomes and food security and in turn undermining farmers’ capacity to invest in conservation activities, often characterized by delayed returns.
“There had been various attempts to introduce technologies to tackle problems such as soil erosion and low yields, but these largely failed as farmers were reluctant to adopt them," says Dr Jeremias Mowo, the World Agroforestry Centre's Regional Coordinator for Eastern Africa and a co-author of the book.
"In addition to wider livelihood, equity and sustainability aims, one of our principal aims was to get farmers to use practices they had previously rejected, largely because they considered them too labour intensive," Dr Mowo adds.
This book demonstrates that efforts to achieve sustainable agricultural development in challenging environments is a complex one, and can only be effectively achieved through combined efforts and commitment of individuals and institutions with complementary roles.
“By acknowledging divergent interests and fostering negotiations on solutions acceptable to each party, site teams were able to solve previously intractable problems as diverse as inequitable technology access, crop destruction from invertebrate pests and excess runoff, degradation of springs and waterways, and boundary conflicts,” says Laura German, one of the authors.
Being an eco-regional programme of the CGIAR, the AHI provides an excellent example of research institutions working closely together – precisely as envisaged under the CGIAR Research Programmes , and doing so with an experiential learning process involving farmers and other stakeholders.
The World Agroforestry Centre collaborated with six other CG Centres as well as scientists from a range of national agricultural research institutes in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, all employing a multidisciplinary approach to their research.
AHI was generously supported by several donors including: the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), the European Commission, the Government of Italy, the Government of Netherlands, the Collective Action and Property Rights Program of the CGIAR, the Department for International Development (DFID) – UK, Aus-AID (Australia), the Rockefeller Foundation and the Government of Norway.
The book was launched during the Beating Famine Conference held in Nairobi in early April. Special thanks to IDRC for supporting the publication of the book and other AHI knowledge products. The authors would also like to recognize the contributions of the late Ann Stroud, AHI Regional Coordinator (1998-2006); the late Lynus Navarro of IDRC (donor, fellow researcher, mentor and AHI friend) and the late Chris Opondo who was one of the contributing authors of the book.
CLICK here to access the book
For more information, contact: Yvonne Otieno Email:
y.otieno(at)cgiar(dot)org
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