About the Book

This book links contemporary debates on land reform with wider discourses on sustainable development within Africa, with chapters and in-depth case studies on South Africa and Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Botswana and West Africa. It traces the development of ideas about sustainable development and addresses a new agenda based on social justice.

The authors critically examine contemporary neoliberal market-led reforms and the legacy of colonialism on the land question. They argue that debates on sustainable development should be placed in the context of structural interests, access and equity, rather than technical management of land and resources. Additionally, they show that these structural factors cannot be transformed by institutional reform based on notions of elective democracy, community participation, and market-reform, but require a far more radical programme to redress the injustices of the colonial system that continue today. The book advocates a commitment to building sustainable livelihoods for farmers, carrying out the necessary reforms to assure them access to natural, political and technical resources, to enable them to transform their situation. The book calls for redistribution of land and natural resources to challenge the existing economic relations within society and existing frameworks for development.

Contents

Introduction: Land and Sustainable Development Issues in Africa - Kojo Sebastian Amanor
1. Land and Sustainable Development in Africa - Wellington Didibhuka Thwala and Misabeni Khosa
2. Interrogating Sustainable Development and Resource Control in Zimbabwe - Sam Moyo and Prosper B. Matondi
3. Land, Norms and Sustainable Development in Africa - Fidelis Edge Kanyongolo
4. Sustaining the Land Question in Kenya: A History of Greed and Grievances - Karuti Kanyinga, Odenda Lumumba and Kojo S. Amanor
5. Sustainable Development: Corporate Accumulation and Community Expropriation: Law and Natural Resources in West Africa - Kojo Sebastian Amanor
6. Sustainable Development, Ecotourism, National Minorities and Land in Botswana - Mpho G. Molomo
7. Conclusion: Transforming Sustainable Development

About the Authors

Sam Moyo is the Executive Director of the African Institute for Agrarian Studies based in Harare, Zimbabwe. He has more than 25 years of research experience on rural development issues with a focus on land and natural resources management, civil society organizations, and capacity building and institutional development. He has been involved in several publications, including The Land Question in Zimbabwe (1995), published by Sapes Books, Harare; Land Reform Under Structural Adjustment in Zimbabwe (2000), published by the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala; and African Land Questions, the State and Agrarian Transition: Contradictions of Neoliberal Land Reforms, CODESRIA Greenbook.

Kojo Amanor is an Associate Professor at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. His main research work is on land, forestry, environmental management, and rural livelihoods. His publications include The New Frontier: Farmers responses to land degradation, London: Zed, 1994; Global restructuring and land rights in Ghana: Forest food chains, timber and rural livelihoods, Nordic Institute of African Studies, Research Report 108, Uppsala, 1999; Land labour and the Family in Southern Ghana: A critique of land policy under neo-liberalisation, Nordic Institute of African Studies, Research Report no. 116, Uppsala. He is also co-editor with W. de Boef and K. Wellard and Anthony Bebbington of Cultivating Knowledge: Genetic diversity, farmer experimentation and crop research, IT, London 1993.