Photo: Kandukuru Nagarjun, via Flickr, CC BY 2.0

The recent series of ALIGN articles shed light on how civil society, impacted communities and rights defenders across the world have used strategies such as legal action, publishing of mining contracts and stakeholder dialogues to change approaches to land-based investment governance.

The Land Portal Foundation, in partnership with Transparency International, hosted the webinar titled "Breaking New Ground: Insights and Stories on the Impact of Land Corruption on Discriminated Groups in Africa." The webinar brought together a panel of distinguished experts to delve into the challenges and complexities of corruption intertwined with discrimination in land rights and governance. This session provided crucial insights through detailed case studies and expert analyses, offering pathways towards more equitable land management practices.

(Photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED ILRI)

OVERVIEW

Under the umbrella of the Advancing Land-based Investment Governance (ALIGN) series, the second webinar of the series “The Maledu Judgement: The power of tenure rights recognition” took place on March 22nd, 2023.  The webinar drew in a little over 230 participants and featured panelists from the private sector, members of mining-affected communities and practitioners.   The series is organized by a consortium of organizations, including the Land Portal Foundation, CCSI, IIED and Namati.  

This blog post is part of the series What to Read. 

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South Africa needs to move away from siloed and passive approaches toward water management and adopt more proactive, robust and integrated approaches.

Apopular phrase in a time of crisis is “it never rains, but it pours”. This is usually a figurative expression referring to the overwhelming sense of chaos at a given time. South Africa is a country which has not been spared from economic, social and political chaos over the past few months, and the phrase has now taken on a literal meaning.

Traditional leaders assign land giving little consideration to spatial planning for long-term, sustainable settlement. People are settled in places unsuitable for human habitation. And climate change will bring added volatility and exposure.

This op-ed by Katlego Ramantsina, a researcher at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies first appeared in the Daily Maverick

Developing land tenure legislation is a difficult job to get right — especially given the legacy of intractable problems inherited from apartheid. The Gauteng consultation did not seem genuine: it lasted only three hours.

The Land Portal advocates for more and better open land data, but more and better have never been our end objectives. Data must be used; it needs a purpose. One of the ways we practice what we preach is through our data stories. 

Ido Lekota is a former Sowetan political editor. 

Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza tabled a R17, 3 billion budget in the past week to help support food security in the country.

Didiza said the money will be distributed through a range of programmes, including the commercialisation of black farmers through land development support.

"If you look at the R17.3bn of our budget, the majority of that is transferred to provinces dealing with food security," she said.