ABSTRACT
There is an urgent need to collect, organize, and to make available all relevant knowledge on sustainable land management (SLM), to support better decision making on land management in developing countries. One or more knowledge centres should be established to make available and accessible data sets, methods, tools, research, and training on SLM. National agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) should be further reinforced in their capacity to undertake effective research on natural resource management (NRM), to make use of land management expertise from other countries (South-South exchange) and from advanced research institutes (ARIs) (North–South exchange), and to cater to different classes of stakeholders (including women and minorities). NGOs, which are increasing in strength, should have a voice in R&D planning. Research is particularly needed in relation to upscaling of biophysical knowledge from the plot and day-to-day level to larger spatial and temporal units. Upscaling to units at which people and institutions manage their resources also provides greater options to integrate biophysical knowledge with economic, social and institutional processes.
