Land degradation is widespread and increasing in eastern Africa highlands. Available knowledge towards SLM unfortunately, remains concentrated at isolated “islands of successes” and largely fragmented in terms of adoption/ uptake. Although individuals and institutions recognise the need for wide adoption of SLM innovations, the inhibiting challenges including: (i) long time to realize benefits;(ii) low rates of returns to investments; (iii) lack of incentives for collective action; and (iv) lack of mechanisms to translate development strategies and policies into effective implementation of SLM at landscape levels.

Despite the challenges, governments in eastern Africa where land degradation is pervasive, SLM is elevated as a development agenda with deliberate commitments towards creating an enabling policy environment for wide adoption of SLM. Among key government commitments is prioritizing improving governance of
natural resources under decentralization policy through empowerment communities towards SLM.

Decentralization entails a transfer of rights, responsibilities, and authorities to Local Governments.
Consequently, Local Government (LG) authorities under the decentralization policy have a legitimate responsibility of promoting SLM as part of their mandate. This situation presents an urgent call for action towards building capacity for SLM at LG levels. It is against this background that multi-stakeholder
innovation platforms (IPs) hosted by local governments are envisaged to play a critical role in catalyzing wide adoption SLM specifically in Ethiopia and Uganda.