An updated (and final) select bibliography of reports on biofuels, land rights in Africa and global land grabbing. 153 organizations are cited, including the ‘top 10’ of FAO, GRAIN, IIED, the International Land Coalition, the Oakland Institute, OHCHR, Pambazuka News, SciDev.Net, TNI and the World Bank and 143 others, from ActionAid to WWF.

An updated (and final) select bibliography of press cuttings on biofuels, land rights in Africa and global land grabbing. It is organised geographically: global, Africa general, 37 African countries and regions, Middle East, Asia, 10 Asian countries, Latin America, 5 Latin American countries with the focus always on land rights in Africa. It now runs to 157 pages.

A short account of the background to a hugely energising conference on global land grabbing held at IDS, Sussex. Over 400 people wanted to write papers for the event, but there was space for only 120. Gives details of the wide scope of the conference, including green grabs.

Current land grabbing in Africa very worrying and carries strong echoes of era of Cecil Rhodes. Land deals being done in secret, myth of much vacant land, willing consent of many African leaders. Biofuels moving from miracle cure to a problem. Some positive experiences in Tanzania. Need for imaginative thinking and action.

Includes land grabbing in early colonial Zimbabwe and Mozambique, contemporary land grabbing, biofuels (citing IIED and Houtart), a ‘race to the bottom’ to attract investors? (citing the new World Bank report), the literature (citing Zoomers, Borras and Franco), conclusion.

Paper written for Democracy, Land and Liberation in Africa Today: Bridging Past and Present Scholarship. A colloquium in honour of Lionel Cliffe held at the University of Cape Town. Includes the academic world, 1960-84 (universities in Southern Africa, my academic writing); the NGO world, 1987-2007 (Oxfam’s Southern Africa Desk, women’s land rights, working with Zimbabwean researchers, land and property rights in post-tsunami Aceh; the consultancy world (Zimbabwe 1999, South Africa 2000 DLA, South Africa 2001 the LRC); an academic again in retirement?

Lists titles and authors of papers from World Bank conference most relevant to current concerns about land grabbing in Africa. Also cites the relevant URLs and gives summaries of the papers.

Extracts from a farewell talk. Includes back to the land; engaging with Oxfam International in Zimbabwe; working on the Zambian Copperbelt; supporting post-tsunami, post-conflict land and property rights advocacy in Aceh, Indonesia; helping to create and sustain national land alliances and support awareness campaigns in Africa; women’s land rights in Southern and Eastern Africa; concluding thoughts, some publications.

Contains three stories, ‘good governance’, a focus on governments, civil society, international NGOs, donors (including critical thoughts on DFID and FAO), cites the works of Kaori Izumi, some concluding thoughts. Argues that there is no culture of genuine democratic political engagement in modern Africa, with governments and civil society deeply distrustful of each other, and that space is being diminished.

An exciting new collection inspired by a 2003 Oxfam/FAO workshop in Pretoria. Foreword briefly looks at the struggle for women’s land rights across the globe and the lack of concrete gains. Women have been confronted by resistance and patriarchy. Many land reform programmes over the past 60 years were falsely premised on notions of a unitary household. Women were disadvantaged by the codification of customary law in colonial Africa and are now by privatization in a context exacerbated by the coming of HIV and AIDS, which is breaking down notions of reciprocity.

Explores some dimensions of an international NGO seeking to work globally on land rights. Draws upon the author’s own work as well as Oxfam’s historical experiences. The first part looks at some of Oxfam’s recent work on land rights, at the involvement of DFID on land rights in Africa, at Oxfam’s engagement with the World Bank, and a brief word on USAID. The second part examines some of Oxfam’s work on land rights over the past two decades in Southern Africa – in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Angola. There are concluding thoughts at the end of each section.

Contains introduction; global – a new threat to poor people’s land – biofuels, older threats, decentralisation; regional � ten years ago, regional land policy review, 2006-7, donors, governments and civil society, the policy-implementation gap, decentralisation, your research programme – DLRSA; conclusion. Argues that since policy engagement at the national level in the past decade has not brought too many successes, more might be achieved in future at the decentralised local level.