This study explored the shift in land use from livestock farming to game farming in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, from a social-ecological regime shift perspective. A regime shift can be defined as a large, persistent change in the structure and function of the intertwined social and…
Landscape-change studies have attracted increasing interest because of their importance to land management and the sustainable livelihoods of rural communities. However, empirical studies on landscape change and its drivers are often poorly understood, particularly, in small rural communities in…
Normative guidelines for addressing project-induced displacement and resettlement have been successful in coercing companies and practitioners to comply with international standards and local requirements. However, good practice has not always been effectively implemented, leading to reduced…
Hybrid land tenure administration occurs in a number of South Africa’s state-subsidised housing projects and in the informal settlements from which the housing beneficiaries tend to be drawn. Ownership is the tenure form in most of these housing projects. Under ownership the law only recognises…
This paper examines the intersections between youth access to land, migration decisions and employment opportunities using nationally representative and multi-year data from multiple African countries. We document evidence on the evolving dynamics in land distribution and ownership patterns, the…
A narrative on rural youth in Africa has continued to evolve in policy circles around the world. Much of it is driven by population statistics that point to an imminent youth bulge in Africa and concerns about a poor economic outlook (stagnation) for African productivity and growth. Fears of…
A new report developed by GIZ highlights success factors and 7 practical entry points for mainstreaming Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) into policies and planning, based on 16 case studies from Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Philippines and Viet Nam in the following contexts:
1. National…
Our purpose is to present and test a typology of land reform theories as a means of understanding and interrogating the motives behind land reform and to better equip land administrators and policymakers to enact land reform programs that are appropriate for their contexts. Here, land reform is…
The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) call for governments to clearly define the term ‘public purpose’ to allow for judicial review of the goals of expropriations of property. However, recent research indicates that national-level legal frameworks that govern…
Public participation in environmental impact assessment (EIA) often falls short of the requirements of best practice in the move towards sustainable development, particularly for disadvantaged and marginalized communities. This paper explores the value of a participatory rural appraisal (PRA)…
Digital participatory mapping improves accessibility to spatial information and the way in which knowledge is co-constructed and landscapes co-managed with impoverished communities. However, many unintended consequences for social and epistemic justice may be exacerbated in developing country…
Understanding how individuals, communities, and populations vary in their vulnerability requires defining and identifying vulnerability with respect to a condition, and then developing robust methods to reliably measure vulnerability. In this study, we illustrate how a conceptual model…