A recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Soil Information revealed that about 24 percent of the world’s land surface is degraded. The study also showed that about 1.5 billion people depend on that land. The area that is most affected is the part of Africa that is south of the equator—it accounts for 18 percent of the global degraded area. Given that the majority of the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, efforts to address land degradation are crucial in achieving the Millennium Development Goals as well as national-level goals to significantly reduce poverty in the region. Understanding the linkages between land degradation, land management, and poverty is essential for designing policies that simultaneously reduce poverty, reverse land degradation, and encourage the adoption of sustainable land management practices. This study uses carefully selected biophysical and socioeconomic variables to examine the case of Uganda, a country that has made significant progress in poverty reduction and is among the countries classified as experiencing severe land degradation.
