land Article ‘Mind the Gap’: Reconnecting Local Actions and Multi-Level Policies to Bridge the Governance Gap. An Example of Soil Erosion Action from East Africa Claire Kelly 1,* , Maarten Wynants 1 , Linus K. Munishi 2, Mona Nasseri 3, Aloyce Patrick 2 , Kelvin M. Mtei 2, Francis Mkilema 2 , Anna Rabinovich 4, David Gilvear 1, Geoff Wilson 1, William Blake 1 and Patrick A. Ndakidemi 2 1 School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK;
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[email protected] Received: 28 August 2020; Accepted: 22 September 2020; Published: 25 September 2020 Abstract: Achieving change to address soil erosion has been a global yet elusive goal for decades. Efforts to implement effective solutions have often fallen short due to a lack of sustained, context-appropriate and multi-disciplinary engagement with the problem. Issues include prevalence of short-term funding for ‘quick-fix’ solutions; a lack of nuanced understandings of institutional, socio-economic or cultural drivers of erosion problems; little community engagement in design and testing solutions; and, critically, a lack of traction in integrating locally designed solutions into policy and institutional processes.