In Malawi, like most other countries in the region with the exception of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, more than 60 per cent of land is customary, meaning that it is mostly untitled and administered by local chiefs on behalf of the government, with local communities merely enjoying user rights. The system has led to many abuses, with some government officials and chiefs selling off customary lands and dispossessing smallholder farmers who are already competing for dwindling arable land as Malawi’s population increases.

In this episode of Africa Today, Walter Turner interviews Anuradha Mittal from the Oakland Institute on land grabs in Africa and speaks with Kambele Musavuli from Friends of the Congo on resource exploitation and contemporary developments in the DRC.

The Land Matrix is an online public database of large-scale land deals. It provides a visualisation of records documenting land deals since 2000. The data you can explore represent about 50 per cent of the entire data base. The remaining deals are being crosschecked and added, together with new data provided, on an on-going basis. The visualisations offer overview of the data as well as giving full access to the public database down to the level of an individual deal.

The unification of the water resources of Africa is one of the primary bases for African unity, with a system of canals linking rivers and lakes in the kind of infrastructure planning that ensures that all will have water.

Thousands of residents in Diepsloot, a large township north of Johannesburg, South Africa, are queuing for hours to access clean, safe water a week after their supply was contaminated by sewage. The contamination occurred when a contractor working on a nearby sewer line broke the water pipe that supplies Diepsloot. Though the damage was repaired, it is believed that E. coli in sewage contaminated the water supply.

Since 2008, the rush for land in developing countries has rapidly intensified but the sector remains largely unregulated and land deals are frequently agreed in secret between governments and investors. This report, 'Dealing with Disclosure', launched by Global Witness, the International Land Coalition and the Oakland Institute, looks at why it is vital to transform the secretive culture behind large scale land deals and, for the first time, sets out in detail what tools governments, companies and citizens can harness to ensure that this happens.

Huge reserves of underground water in some of the driest parts of Africa could provide a buffer against the effects of climate change for years to come, scientists have said. Researchers from the British Geological Survey and University College London have for the first time mapped the aquifers, or groundwater, across the continent and the amount they hold.

This new publication by the Association for Progressive Communications and the International Development Research Centre gathers several reports from developing countries on how ICTs are and can be applied to help communities experiencing water-reated stress, adapt to climate change. While drawing on current experiences in the field of water management and sustainability, the perspective of the authors is primarily from the ICT for development (ICT4D) sector.

South Sudan's army has completed its withdrawal from Sudan's main Heglig oil field, the military said Sunday, but condemned the north for bombing the area. Juba seized the flashpoint oil hub on April 10, claiming that Khartoum was using Heglig as a base to attack the South's oil-producing Unity State. Although South Sudan disputes it, Heglig is internationally regarded as part of Sudan.

In 2011, Socfin Agricultural Company Sierra Leone Ltd. (Socfin SL) secured 6,500 hectares (ha) of prime farmland for rubber and oil palm plantations in Malen chiefdom in Pujehun district in the south of Sierra Leone. The firm is now seeking an additional 5,000 ha in expansion plans in the Malen region or neighboring chiefdoms. The initial investment, estimated at $100 million, with promises of job creation, compensation for lost farms, and construction of infrastructures, has enjoyed high-level government support.

A two-day National Conference on Land Owners and Land Users affected by large scale investments in agriculture organized by the Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food (SiLNoRF) and Green Scenery, held on the 2nd and 3rd April, 2012 at the St. Edwards Pre- School Hall, Kingtom, Freetown ended up with a recommendation by participants for the formation of a Civil Society coalition that would serve as a watchdog on land issues in the country. In response to this recommendation, the 'Action for Large scale Land Acquisition Transparency’' known as (ALLAT) was formed.

This report compiled by the National Association of Professional Environmentalists and supported by Friends of the Earth International investigates cases of land grabbing in Uganda, focusing in particular on oil palm plantations in Kalangala, Lake Victoria. It assesses the impacts on rural communities and on the local environment, and questions who benefits from these
projects.

Learn why the carbon trading gamble and ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ won’t save the planet from climate change and why African civil society is resisting. Read the second EJOLT report, 'The CDM in Africa Cannot Deliver the Money', by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society and Dartmouth College Climate Justice Research Project. A dozen researchers from around the globe, under the guidance of Professor Patrick Bond, explain in full detail – and through case studies from South Africa, Niger, Kenya, Mozambique, Ethiopia, the DRC and Tanzania – why the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is failing. The West’s strategy to reduce emissions is causing more harm than good to Africa - the continent that contributes the least to climate change but that suffers the heaviest toll. Disguised as a ‘solution’ to the climate change crisis, the CDM is now creating a second injustice above this existing injustice.

'We oppose the dominant economic and financial model that is in favour of privatizing and commoditizing water and sanitation services. Capitalist, extractive development has created dramatic and profound economic, social, and environmental crises. This approach, which considers water to be a commodity like any other, is unjust and ineffective in providing access to water and sanitation to all, and goes against the will and interests of the people.'

Three stories on the Farm Radio Weekly website deal with 'land grabs', which are in many cases violations of farmers’ land rights. The first story is from Burkina Faso and tells how land owned by small-scale farmers is being granted to influential 'Sunday farmers'. The government gambled that encouraging investors to create large modern farms would help achieve food self-sufficiency. But few large land owners are even using their new land for farming, and smaller farmers are increasingly locked out of the land market.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy will probably expand 5.4 per cent this year as rising commodity prices and increased oil production help to offset a slowdown in Europe, the International Monetary Fund said. Growth is set to accelerate from 5.1 per cent in 2011 and compares with 5.5 percent estimated in January, the Washington-based lender said in its World Economic Outlook report today. The IMF raised its growth forecast for South Africa, the region’s largest economy, to 2.7 per cent for this year from 2.5 per cent.

An ecological disaster of massive proportions is imminent in the Vaal River system because of the decision years ago not to implement the mining industry's proposal for the treatment of acid mine drainage. Government's own emergency plan to treat the acid water has resulted in the equivalent of 140 tonnes of salts being discharged into these rivers each day because of the decision to dump neutralised but sulphate-rich water into the rivers of the Western Basin.

Oil transparency activists were disappointed by a ruling against them yesterday in Nakawa High Court, Kampala, but have vowed to continue a legal battle to require the government of Uganda to publish Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that it has reached with international oil companies. Lady Justice Faith Mwhonda rejected an application from the African Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) and three other civil society organisations for permission to present evidence at an appeal by two journalists against a separate ruling which denied them access to the PSAs.

Lawrence Ozelle pushes aside his tool box and steps forward to confront us as we photograph Kyapaloni market - a trading centre in Kabaale parish, Buseruka sub-county, some twenty kilometre west of Hoima town. 'Who are you people?' he demands. 'Do you want to steal our land?' Ever since oil was discovered nearby, the locals say, they have had no peace. Strangers come to Kabaale on a daily basis. Some promise development, while others come and go quietly.

Over R570-billion will be needed for investment across South Africa's water value chain, in the coming 10 years, according to Minister for Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa. The money is needed to pay for water resources infrastructure, water services and water conservation and demand management across national government, municipalities and the country's existing 12 water boards.