Zimbabwe’s Covid-19 lockdown: Ensuring the right to food for the poor BlogFeatured Blog

Zimbabwe’s Covid-19 lockdown: Ensuring the right to food for the poor

By Phillan Zamchiya, Dewa Mavhinga, Thando Gwinji, Arnold Chamunogwa and Claris Madhuku The Covid-19 global pandemic poses serious challenges to fragile countries such as Zimbabwe, which have weak health systems and constrained social assistance programmes. Such countries must formulate and implement measures to tackle the unfolding public health crisis without plunging millions of people into starvation. This is the challenge…
PLAAS
April 14, 2020
Water and sanitation in the face of Covid-19 in Cape Town’s townships and informal settlements BlogFeatured BlogUncategorized

Water and sanitation in the face of Covid-19 in Cape Town’s townships and informal settlements

By Mafaniso Hara, Bongani Ncube, Darlington Sibanda Ever since the 21-day national lockdown to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus came into effect, reports indicate that the lockdown may have worsened the already existing inequalities in access to water and sanitation services in townships, informal settlements and among the homeless. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), water, sanitation…
PLAAS
April 8, 2020
Covid-19: The impact on small-scale fishers—A perspective from Ocean View BlogFeatured BlogUncategorized

Covid-19: The impact on small-scale fishers—A perspective from Ocean View

By Charles America, Joseph Ginindza and Moenieba Isaacs   The Covid-19 pandemic actually just further illustrates how insignificant and how severely neglected we, as small-scale fishers, are as a legitimate fisheries resource user-group.” — Charles America, veteran fisher and activist from Ocean View Charles situates his discontentment in the failed policies and lack of policy implementation in the privatisation of…
PLAAS
April 7, 2020
Food in the time of the coronavirus: Why we should be very, very afraid BlogFeatured BlogUncategorized

Food in the time of the coronavirus: Why we should be very, very afraid

By Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies The social legitimacy of the ‘COVID-19 lockdown’, government’s regulations imposed to contain the spread of the virus, is most likely to run aground unless an urgent plan can be made to ensure that everyone in the country has access to sufficient food. And it’s not looking good. Based on interviews, statements by…
PLAAS
April 1, 2020
Phillan Zamchiya: Land deals in Africa: Many suffer challenges BlogUncategorized

Phillan Zamchiya: Land deals in Africa: Many suffer challenges

By Phillan Zamchiya From 2016 to 2019, the Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) embarked on a project aimed at securing land and water rights for vulnerable men and women in line with global and regional policy frameworks. The project titled ‘Land and Water Rights in Southern Africa: Entrenching Global and Regional Policy’ was funded by the Austrian…
PLAAS
March 26, 2020
Katlego Ramantsima: Land tenure school for activists a success BlogUncategorized

Katlego Ramantsima: Land tenure school for activists a success

By Katlego Ramantsima From 16 to 24 February, the Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) joined Tshisimani Centre for Activists, Ntinga Ntaba kaNdoda (Ntinga), Border Rural Committee (BRC), Land and Accountability Research Centre (LARC) and the Trust for Community Outreach Education (TCOE) in co-organising a land tenure school to support marginalised rural communities and land activists in the…
PLAAS
March 19, 2020
Wytske Chamberlain and Karin Kleinbooi: Southern African governments fail smallholder farmers in their commitments made in the Malabo Declaration BlogUncategorized

Wytske Chamberlain and Karin Kleinbooi: Southern African governments fail smallholder farmers in their commitments made in the Malabo Declaration

In 2014, the African Union (AU) member states adopted the Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods (the Malabo Declaration). This declaration provides direction to transform the agricultural sector in Africa for the period 2015-2025 within the wider framework of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). It is an essential document that…
PLAAS
March 12, 2020
Andries du Toit: Beyond the “populist” challenge Blog

Andries du Toit: Beyond the “populist” challenge

PLAAS recently reposted three thought-provoking blog posts exploring progressive  responses to  the new wave of ‘populist’  politics that has risen to prominence since 2015:  Ian Scoones’s overview of the activities of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative, and Brian Levy’s reflections on the ‘four moral challenges’ of populist discourse, and on the nature of appropriate responses to the antagonistic and confrontational…
PLAAS
February 6, 2020
Brian Levy: Combat fire not with fire, but non-violent resistance BlogUncategorized

Brian Levy: Combat fire not with fire, but non-violent resistance

How to fight back against toxic populism? In the spirit of standing up against bullies, a natural tendency is to fight fire with fire. But is this the right response? A few years ago, this question might have seemed to be largely of historical interest—an exploration of, say, whether different tactics by Germany’s left and centre-left might have slowed the…
PLAAS
January 31, 2020
Brian Levy: Learning from populism–four moral struggles BlogUncategorized

Brian Levy: Learning from populism–four moral struggles

While I’ve not become a born-again populist, a sea change in the tenor of political discourse has led me to explore some uncomfortable terrain: What might be usefully be learned for the task of democratic renewal from the resurgence of populism in country after country? I have come to understand that the health of societies and polities depends on modes…
PLAAS
January 31, 2020