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.
Details
Location
Climate Change and Agrarian Justice Conference
International Online Conference on Climate Change and Agrarian Justice – with IDS Fellow Ian Scoones. 26-29 September 2022
South African Land Conference on The Failed Promise of Tenure Security: Customary Land Rights and Dispossession: The last word
Citizens of rural communities across the country who are fighting for their land rights are outraged at the government’s treatment of them, likening it to apartheid and colonialism.
Violence, intimidation, assassinations and dispossession are continuing in parts of the country as black South Africans struggle to defend their land rights against moves by the government, often in cahoots with traditional leaders and private companies.
South Africa
Exporting copper from Zambia — a tale of two roads
Copper remains Zambia’s principal export and tax earner. But getting the product out is subject to challenges of both hardware and software.
The towns on the road to Mongu are memorable for their roadside stalls and shiny tomatoes, throngs of people in brightly coloured chitenge, and the quaintly named shops. (Photo: Greg Mills)
Sierra Leone passes new laws to boost landowners' rights
Sierra Leone's parliament on Monday passed two laws that lawyers say will help boost the rights of rural landowners and women against land grabs by big mining and agribusiness firms.
The West African country has a history of sometimes deadly conflict between local communities and foreign companies that have cleared huge tracts of land for palm oil and sugarcane plantations in recent years.
Drought: We know what to do, why don’t we do it?
Ignoring the plight of 20 million people in the Horn of Africa is a political choice.
The 20 million people struggling to survive a scorching drought in the Horn of Africa are victims not only of a climate crisis but of the failings of governments and humanitarians to heed the lessons from earlier disasters.
Kigali city launches fresh operation against undeveloped land
City of Kigali authorities have said they have embarked on renewed exercise to identify plots of land within city suburbs that have not been developed, warning that the law will take its course for those who will be found at fault.
The 2013 Law Governing Land Use in Rwanda provides for the confiscation of land within urban areas for which a detailed physical plan was approved by competent authorities, but it spends three consecutive years unexploited.