Overview – Land Degradation

Costs of Land Degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Land degradation is an increasingly severe problem in Sub-Saharan Africa and affects at least 485 million people in Africa (Reich, P.F. et al. 2001). Up to two-thirds of Africa’s productive land area is affected by land degradation, while close to 100 percent is vulnerable to it. Consider these facts:

• Although Africa hosts only 17 percent of the world’s forests, the continent accounts for over half of all global deforestation, most of which is driven by demands for more agricultural land (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Desertification Synthesis Report 2004).
• Two-thirds of Africa’s cropland could effectively be non-productive by 2025 (UN 2004).
• Over 3 percent of agricultural GDP is lost annually as a direct result of soil and nutrient loss in Sub-Saharan Africa (Drechsel and Gyiele 1999).
• The economic costs of poor land management have been estimated to be US$9 billion per annum in Africa (GTZ CCD Fact Sheet on Desertification (cite: Dregne 1991)).

Common Vision

The current trends of land degradation and unsustainable land management in Sub-Saharan Africa are negatively impacting rural land use productivity and the security of ecosystem functions. Scaling up Sustainable Land Management (SLM) is necessary in order to reverse these trends, and thereby address a major obstacle to economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is a common goal shared by a wide range of stakeholders.

Past experiences point to a range of barriers, or bottlenecks, which need to be dismantled if SLM is to be effectively and efficiently scaled up: institutional and sectoral barriers, knowledge barriers, policy barriers, financial barriers and implementation barriers.

The TerrAfrica Response

The TerrAfrica partnership provides a collective vehicle for addressing bottlenecks, resulting in unlocking and increasing efficiency of financial and non-financial resources, to create an enabling environment for mainstreaming and financing effective nationally-driven SLM strategies. The partnership work program has three mutually reinforcing Activity Lines:

AL1 – Coalition Building

AL2 – Knowledge Management

AL3 – Investments

In short, the TerrAfrica partnership provides a collective vehicle for addressing bottlenecks, resulting in unlocking and increasing efficiency of financial and non-financial resources, to create an enabling environment for mainstreaming and financing effective nationally-driven SLM strategies.