Africa is facing numerous challenges including a rapidly growing population, soil erosion, declining soil fertility and climate change. In the face of all these problems, the need to feed the growing population has led to expansion of land for agriculture and pasture production rather than increasing productivity. Available land must produce more food and pasture to meet the growing demand while  conserving soil resources, reducing erosion risk, and improving the overall resilience of the land to produce and sustain current and future ecosystem services. Due to climate change, systems and phenologies are changing. With already stressed coping strategies, decision makers at management and policy levels together with local communities are often forced to make serious land use decisions with incomplete knowledge and information.