Focal point
Location
PLAAS was founded in 1995 as a specialist unit in the School of Government, Economic and Management Sciences Faculty at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Cape Town. Since then, PLAAS has developed a proven track record of undertaking high-quality research on land and agrarian reform, poverty, and natural resource management in South Africa and the southern African region.
Besides research and postgraduate teaching, PLAAS undertakes training, provides advisory, facilitation and evaluation services and is active in the field of national policy development. Through these activities, and by seeking to apply the tools of critical scholarship to questions of policy and practice, we seek to develop new knowledge and fresh approaches to the transformation of society in southern Africa.
Members:
Resources
Displaying 46 - 50 of 54Civil society and social movements: Advocacy for land and resource rights in Africa
Civil society formations in Africa have historically played an important part in the establishment of organising people in the pursuit of common goals. The majority of Africa’s people reside in rural areas where they derive their livelihoods from land, and for this majority secure access to land is the foundation of any efforts to alleviate poverty. Land reforms in Africa are at various stages of development in a number of countries, partly in response to pressures for liberalisation and privatisation from the World Bank and other like-minded institutions.
Land use and rural livelihoods: Have they been enhanced through land reform?
It is often assumed that transferring land to rural households will provide people with valuable assets that can be productively used to enhance their livelihoods. Unfortunately, few rural people or land reform beneficiaries are perceived to be using land productively because they do not engage in significant commercial production for the market. Transferring land to subsistence users is therefore seen as a waste of resources.
Reforming Communal Land Tenure in South Africa: why Land Titling is not the Answer. Critical Comments on the Communal Land Rights Bill, 2002
Includes the need for tenure reform; the draft CLRB does not provide appropriate solutions; learning from the African and the South African experiences; why titling is generally inappropriate and ineffective; the unintended consequences of titling programmes; why the draft Bill will not be able to be effectively implemented; the alternative to land titling – learning from new land tenure laws in Mozambique and Tanzania.
Radical Land Reform is Key to Sustainable Rural Development in South Africa
Argues that sustainable development in 21st century South Africa will never be achieved without a radical assault on the structural underpinnings of poverty and inequality inherited from 3 centuries of oppression and exploitation. A large-scale redistribution of land and resources, accompanied by the securing of tenure rights in practice as well as in law, is required for long-term sustainability. Asks how is the government’s land reform performing, and how sustainable are land-based livelihoods?
Tenure Reform back on the Agenda?
A short report on the national Land Tenure Conference. Argues that the thorny issue of tenure reform is at last being taken seriously. Land administration in the former homelands is in chaos. Those living on commercial farms have precarious tenure. Traditional leaders are digging in their heels over control of communal land. Need for robust political leadership and allocation of resources to ensure that rights become real. Hopes conference will be followed by a lively process of public consultation and debate.