Topics and Regions
Rick has over 40 years experience working in the land sector in Southern Africa. He is part of the Land Portal knowledge engagement team working to research and develop knowledge resources including data stories, blogs and in-depth country profiles for Southern, Central and Eastern Africa.
Rick is also a Senior Research Associate with Phuhlisani NPC - a South African land sector NGO and the curator of specialist Southern African land news and analysis website https://knowledgebase.land
He tweets on land related issues Twitter account https://twitter.com/KnowledgebaseL
He has a PhD from the University of Cape Town. His research in Langa, Cape Town features as the central case study in a recent book Urban Planning in the Global South (2018), co-authored with the late Vanessa Watson, which examines the on-going contestations over land and housing in the rapidly growing cities of the global South.
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Grabbing land from black farmers and political opponents in Zimbabwe
Reimagining governance of the Commons in Cameroon
Malawi becomes the first country to open the IMF’s new ‘Food Shock Window’
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has a new financing tool called the ‘Food Shock Window’ to address balance of payments needs linked to the global food crisis. Malawi, where hunger among the poor is common, is the first low-income country to open that window.
Under the “staff-level agreement”, in IMF-speak, Malawi will receive up to $88.3-million in emergency financing. Hunger periodically stalks the warm heart of Africa, especially at the start of the grain-planting season when most of the previous season’s crop has been consumed.
African Civil Society And Faith Leaders Say Rebranding The Green Revolution Is No Solution
Farmers, civil society and faith leaders of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa recognise the double rebranding of the Green Revolution as an admission of failure, a cynical distraction, and reject the new strategy offered by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
What Africa's irrigation renaissance means for food security
As Africa faces the threat of climate change, and as population growth increases demand for food, smallholder farmers, who form the bulk of the continent's food producers, are turning to innovative irrigation systems to secure year-round food production.
“I am powerless”: Chinese company mines with impunity in Congo Basin
Liberia: Dispossessed indigenous Kpelle communities take legal action
22 Communities dispossessed of their customary land sue Salala Rubber Corp and the Liberian Government.
Residents of 22 indigenous Kpelle communities, dispossessed of their customary land, cultural sites, and livelihoods, have filed a groundbreaking legal action against the Salala Rubber Corporation (SRC) and the Liberian Government.
Just Transition Open Agenda
From 24 to 26 November 2020, the three organisations comprising the Life After Coal campaign, Earthlife Africa (Johannesburg), the Centre for Environmental Rights and groundWork, met virtually to develop a shared Open Agenda on the Just Transition.
The open agenda focuses on:
Land reform in South Africa is failing. Ignoring the realities of rural life plays a part
There is widespread agreement that land reform in South Africa has failed to deliver the changes many hoped it would. Racially based dislocation and land dispossession were central features of colonial conquest and apartheid rule.