The strategy would focus on vigorous range management, soil and water conservation including tree-planting, limiting over-grazing and preventing deforestation. Improving water availability would also require additional construction of surface dams during rainy seasons and deep wells.

The primary causes of desertification in Somaliland include, among other things, deforestation, over-grazing and mismanagement of land and the environment as well as soil erosion, all of which have damaging effects on farmland and rangeland. Drought, considered as a cyclical phenomenon generally refers to rains failing for a long period of time which accelerates desertification and drastic reduction of water. Drought, is more compounded nowadays, by global climate change.