Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 25% of the global ?gure of chronically undernourished. The region simply does not produce enough food to adequately feed its population, and food production per capita is declining. If nothing changes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the absolute numbers of poor in the region will continue to increase. Unless African governments, supported by the international community, take the lead in confronting the factors that cause nutrient depletion and land degradation, deteriorating agricultural productivity will seriously undermine efforts to bring about food security and to strengthen the foundations of sustainable economic growth in SSA.  This chapter reviews the current state of knowledge related to the condition of SSA land and water resources and highlights the importance of linking degraded land and water management at local and landscape scales in order to address pressing issues of food crisis in the region. There has been less agricultural water development to date in SSA than in any other region. Water management is usually the key to increasing the productivity of arid and semiarid lands. The dominant water resource management challenge over the coming generations is how to secure water to cover food demands of a rapidly expanding population. Promising technologies available to farmers in SSA include conservation tillage, rainwater harvesting, and integrated soil and water conservation. Intensifying agricultural production has in the past often been carried out with negative side effects in terms of land and water degradation. Therefore, legislation that will safeguard a water reserve and ef ? cient water productivity improvements that will make it the region to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and thus long-term sustainability in agricultural productivity is recommended.