Agriculture is driving small town growth in post-land reform Zimbabwe Blog

Agriculture is driving small town growth in post-land reform Zimbabwe

Our research has shown how land reform has driven the growth in small towns, creating new economic linkages in a reconfigured economic geography of the country. No longer are the metropolitan centres and associated manufacturing industries driving growth, as these have declined as industries have collapsed along with the decline of the formal economy in Zimbabwe. Instead, growth is emerging…
PLAAS
June 19, 2025
New businesses in small towns in Zimbabwe Blog

New businesses in small towns in Zimbabwe

What are the new businesses being established in the small towns of Zimbabwe? As the last blog has illustrated our long-term study of Mvurwi, Chatsworth and Maphisa shows a variety of changes, with different drivers associated. There are varying links too with a changing agriculture, but what is evident across our study sites is that land reform has shifted the…
PLAAS
June 19, 2025
The continuing growth of small towns in Zimbabwe Blog

The continuing growth of small towns in Zimbabwe

As the economic geography of Zimbabwe reconfigures following land reform, the growth of small towns continues to be an important phenomenon. No longer is economic growth concentrated in the metropolitan areas where industrial areas have declined, but it’s in small towns. Some of these have only recently received ‘town’ status, but many are booming, with new forms of growth driven…
PLAAS
June 19, 2025
Twenty-five years after Zimbabwe’s land reform: understanding change BlogFeatured BlogHome Slider

Twenty-five years after Zimbabwe’s land reform: understanding change

This year it’s 25 years since Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform. Ever since the year 2000 when people invaded the land and former white farmers were dispossessed of their farms, we have been tracking what has happened. We have been asking a very simple question: what happened to livelihoods once people got land? This year is therefore a moment to reflect…
PLAAS
June 19, 2025
Fishing commons, collective action, and resistance: conservation along the Chilika Lagoon in India BlogFeaturedFeatured BlogHome Slider

Fishing commons, collective action, and resistance: conservation along the Chilika Lagoon in India

An interesting contrast in authorities' conservation models emerged during my seven-day visit to communities surrounding India’s Chilika Lagoon in Odisha province. These models, experienced differently by each of the three small-scale fishing communities we visited during the trip, demonstrated benefits and challenges in the coexistence of community livelihoods and the success of conservation. The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian…
Siphesihle Mbhele
June 13, 2025
Can this Budget bring about land justice? Something has got to give BlogFeaturedFeatured BlogHome SliderNews & EventsNews & Events Featured

Can this Budget bring about land justice? Something has got to give

By Nkanyiso Gumede and Ruth Hall Budget allocation is one measure of the government's commitment to deliver on its obligation to enact land reforms - including land redistribution, land restitution and land tenure reform. The government makes resources available to the Minister of Land Reform and Rural Development to fulfill its mandate to implement land reforms. In this section, we…
PLAAS
March 13, 2025
Cattle herders and the ‘green struggles’ in Senegal Blog

Cattle herders and the ‘green struggles’ in Senegal

During my brief field visit to Ndangane communal area in Senegal on 8 October 2024, I was struck by the lush green native trees, shrubs, grass and plants fenced and gated in the midst of the village. This was a "green enclosure" where the community land was enclosed for purposes of advancing the environmental agenda. In local parlance, they called…
Phillan Zamchiya
December 17, 2024
woman farming
Islam, custom, statutory law, and women’s land rights in rural Senegal BlogFeaturedFeatured Blog

Islam, custom, statutory law, and women’s land rights in rural Senegal

Phillan Zamchiya Policies, laws, and constitutions - written and unwritten - play the biggest role in many parts of the western world in governing land tenure relations given the dominant forms of individualised forms of property. However, my brief field visit to Damali village, an African Muslim community, in Senegal on 8 October 2024 confirmed a different conundrum of statutory,…
PLAAS
November 10, 2024
Lessons from the International Interdisciplinary Security of Land Tenure Conference BlogFeaturedFeatured BlogUncategorized

Lessons from the International Interdisciplinary Security of Land Tenure Conference

The International Interdisciplinary Security of Land Tenure (IISLT) conference brought together professionals, lawyers, academics, government officials and students to emphasise the importance collaboration and interdisciplinary approach in remedying the issue of tenure security. The conference was held from 6 to 8 May 2024 at the University of Free State with a promise to tackle the pervasive issue of insecure land…
PLAAS
May 31, 2024
A farmer from the San Joaquín Farm in Colombia's prime agricultural Magdalena Medio region.
Colombia’s expropriation without compensation and lessons from South Africa BlogFeaturedFeatured Blog

Colombia’s expropriation without compensation and lessons from South Africa

Ruth Hall and Ayanda Madlala In the sweltering heat of Colombia’s central lowlands, a dirt road flanked by fertile meadows with lush foliage, palm trees, horses and cattle eventually reaches 20-30 friendly campesinos outside the gates of a grand hacienda - the main house of a farming estate. It has all the hallmarks of its former luxuries: double-volume cool rooms,…
PLAAS
May 8, 2024