The great lakes region of Central Africa is beautiful and abundant in hills, people and conflicts. Its high altitude and cooler climate make it ideal for crops. But soils have been exhausted, spare land is rarely available, and competition and struggle for resources has marked much of the region’s history of the past 50 years. Many farmers in parts of this region rank among the most food insecure and malnourished on earth. This is because of low farm productivity since the majority depends on agriculture that is done with minimal fertilizer use. A 2006 baseline survey revealed that more than 60 percent of the population in Central Burundi and South Kivu were food insecure and had very few opportunities to diversify income with off-farm activities. Farm sizes are too small (< 2 ha). Although Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) still has some spare land, the existing land tenure arrangements do not encourage farmers to invest in soil and water conservation since most of the land is in the hands of the chiefs, locally known as “Mwamis.” These challenges, nested across different scales, point to the need for innovative ways of working through multistakeholder processes.