The 28 recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNEP, 1977c; 1978) ranged far and wide amongst both technical and social aspects of global ecological degradation and drought. The heart of the Plan of Action was the introduction or extension of land-use planning on ‘ecologically sound’ principles (recommendation 2), but account was also taken of the need to recognise the ‘needs, wisdom and aspirations of the people’ (recommendation 3). Technical proposals were principally directed to the major ecological subsystems – water resources, rangelands, rain-fed agricultural areas, irrigated areas, and woodland vegetation (recommendations 5–9), and to the development of alternative energy sources (19). There was also a group of proposals aiming to monitor and improve human welfare, including the strengthening of systems of insurance against drought (recommendations 12–17). The remaining recommendations covered survey, evaluation and monitoring (1, 11), science and education (18, 20), and national and international administrative, planning and financial aspects (21–8). Discussion of these global recommendations is beyond the scope of this study, based as it is on a small part of one African bioclimatic region. However, it may be noted that considerable criticism has attended the efforts of the United Nations Environment Programme whose Desertification Branch was given responsibility for coordinating the implementation of the recommendations (Timberlake, 1986: 92–7). Financial resources have been inadequate and, so far, progress has been slow: apparently ‘the war against desertification is being lost’ (Walls, 1984).