This study is the product of a co-operative venture between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and the international Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). UNRISD was requested by UNEP to prepare an annotated bibliography and a literature review of the principal issues concerning the social dimensions of desertification, as a contribution to the international workshop, "Listening to the People", organized by UNEP, in December 1993.