‘Poor soils make poor people, and poor people make soils worse’. This is a situation that can be seen in many ACP countries. What information support can be offered...

This report was produced following a study visit to Kenya and Uganda, 19–30 April 2004. The visit was sponsored by CTA and organised in collaboration with ORREDE and SACDEP–Kenya.

All eastern Africa is in the tropics, but its grasslands cover a very wide range of altitudes. Extensive grasslands are mostly in arid and semi -arid zones. The area is subject to droughts and a high degree of pastoral risk. Potential vegetation is largely desert and semi-desert, bush and woodland, with only a small area of pure grassland, but the grass -dominated herbaceous layer of the other formations is very important for wildlife and livestock; 75 percent of eastern Africa is dominated by grasslands, often with a varying amount of woody vegetation.

The mountain farmers operate on whole of animals (flocks, herds, working herds) copying models coming surely from the beginning of domestication. The apprenticeship lengthwise of centuries was received as a heritage and they will to enrich through every generational change. Furthermore, in mountain difficulties the commerce do not rise a regulative capacity as on the plains or well communicated regions and therefore the efficiency way is nearly indispensable.

Millennium Development Goal Number Seven is particularly concerned with the safeguarding and provision of freshwater resources to all human.beings; this is a major challenge – and perhaps even the main challenge – for all the world’s drylands. SUMAMAD project aims at the sustainable management of marginal drylands, where the scarcity of water imposes restrictions for the productivity of each particular ecosystem. It is needed therefore to look into the entire water complex so as to promote a wise and sustainable water use. However,