Innovation platforms for sustainable land management in East African landscapes: Stewardship, incentives, and challenges

Excerpt

This paper examines the potential role of innovation platforms (IPs) in facilitating the adoption and scaling up of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) practices in East Africa, where land degradation has been a prime challenge affecting food security, livelihoods, and environmental services. Land degradation in Ethiopia has been costing about 3% of the agricultural gross domestic product with an estimated value of US$7 billion over a 20-year period (Berry 2003). Similarly, communities around Mount Elgon in Uganda have been seriously affected by land degradation in multiple ways, including recurrent landslides, which have caused many deaths and destroyed livelihoods (Edwards 2012).

Two traditional ways to deal with natural resource issues are either to organize individual farmers to better manage resources or to impose a solution from outside, commonly by government institutions. Both are found to be unsatisfactory: the first fails to bring in outside resources to deal with community needs, while the latter fails to consult adequately with members of local communities. Innovation platforms are avenues to enhance such interaction among different parties (Nederlof et al. 2011; Hall et al. 2001). An IP is a holistic approach, which involves a diverse set of actors and exploits linkages for improved action, coordination, and…