According to South African government records, there are no fewer than 400 abandoned coal mines.The risks from unrehabilitated mines extend far beyond the people who access the sites –they risk polluting the water of millions of South Africans. Coal across South Africa is found predominantly in…
Land and water are vital resources for sustaining rural livelihoods and are critical for rural development as they form the basis of agriculture, the main economic activity for rural communities. Nevertheless, in most developing countries, land and water resources are unevenly distributed due to…
This working paper summarises our understanding of a framework to support the scaling of participatory development in low-income urban neighbourhoods in the global South. The discussion addresses constraints that have previously been identified both in the academic literature and through social…
As part of the efforts to find sustainable solutions to complex land tenure issues, multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) create an inclusive forum where actors can discuss problems and propose solutions to improve governance of tenure and provide better access to natural resources. This…
Dans le cadre de la recherche de réponses durables aux questions foncières complexes, les plateformes multi-acteurs offrent un lieu de débat ouvert qui permet aux acteurs d’aborder les problèmes et de proposer des solutions pour améliorer la gouvernance foncière et l’accès aux ressources…
<em>Land, Law and Chiefs in Rural South Africa</em> analyses contestations of power and control over land through the lens of local case studies in the densely settled former African ‘homelands’ or Bantustans. These were areas reserved for African occupation by the apartheid…
The battle for land reform is a persistent and intensifying dimension of politics and social life in the Global South where people are struggling to escape the claws of colonialism and capitalism. Here, the violent history of being stripped of the land and forced to sell labor power has left a…
Today, the Coalition for Urban Transitions releases a new report ‘Seizing the Urban Opportunity’, which provides insights from six emerging economies on how national governments can recover from COVID-19, tackle the climate crisis and secure shared prosperity through cities. Launching as a call…
Nature-based solutions (NbS) include all the landscape’s ecological components that have a function in the natural or urban ecosystem. Memorial Parking Trees (MPTs) are a new variant of a nature-based solution composed of a bioswale and a street tree allocated in the road, occupying a space that…
Today, the design and remodeling of urban environments is being sought in order to achieve green, healthy, and sustainable cities. The effect of air pollution in cities due to vehicle combustion gases is an important part of the problem. Due to the indirect effect caused by the Covid-19 pandemic…
In the context of current agrarian reform efforts in South Africa, this paper analyses the livelihood trajectories of ‘emergent’ farmers in Eastern Cape Province. We apply a rural livelihoods framework to 60 emergent cattle farmers to understand the different capitals they have drawn upon in…
Contemporary discourses on customary land tenure in Africa, and South Africa in particular, have emphasized the socially embedded and flexible nature of customary land rights, recognising these as inherently more ‘pro-poor’ than individual titling. Based on in-depth interviews and participant…