This bulletin highlights initiatives to support socially responsible investment. 

Characterizing the spatiotemporal patterns of ecosystem responses to drought is important in understanding the impact of water stress on tropical ecosystems and projecting future land cover transitions in the East African tropics.

This paper engages with innovative ways to apply participatory mapping techniques and the latest technological tools in fragile, conflict-affected settings to contribute to sustainable land use. In this paper, the authors describe in detail the process and purpose of a participatory mapping project in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and elaborate on the lessons learned so far.

Background

Programs that seek to increase women’s participation in marketing activities related to the principal household economic activity must involve men if they are to be successful. In this paper we analyze take-up of a project that sought to increase women’s involvement in sugarcane marketing and sales by encouraging the registration of a sugarcane block contract in the wife’s name.

This policy brief aims to give an overview of land degradation hotspots in Kenya and the policy options for land restoration. In this assessment, land degradation is referred to as the persistent loss of ecosystem function and productivity caused by disturbances from which the land cannot recover without human intervention (unaided).

Agricultural GDP in Ethiopia grew at an average 7.3 percent per year between 2001/02 and 2012/13. Most of this dynamism occurred in the highlands, where high population density and land scarcity begs the question of how future agricultural output can be maintained to sustain the previous decade’s momentum.

This policy brief aims to give an overview of land degradation hotspots in Siaya County and the policy options for land restoration. In this assessment, land degradation is referred to as the persistent loss of ecosystem function and productivity caused by disturbances from which the land cannot recover without human intervention (unaided).