Delegates from 12 countries united in Lomé, Togo for the 3^rd Conference by the African Land Institutions Network for Community Rights (ALIN); They highlighted successes and challenges from ongoing community land rights reforms in their countries, and charted a roadmap for the future; The conference, hosted by the Government of Togo, was initiated by the Rights and Resources Initiative (www.RightsandResources.org) and co-organized by International Land Coalition, Africa.

Adama Soro, vice-président chargé des relations du Groupe Endeavour pour le Burkina Faso, est le nouveau président de la Chambre des mines du Burkina (CMB) depuis le 25 juin 2021. Dans cet entretien accordé à Sidwaya, il décline ses ambitions pour le secteur minier burkinabè sous son mandat. Sans langue de bois ni faux-fuyant, il met le doigt sur les problèmes qui minent le secteur, propose des solutions pour réconcilier les burkinabè avec leur secteur minier. 

BOUSSÉ — Terror attacks on gold mining operations in Burkina Faso are becoming a regular occurrence. For VOA, reporter Henry Wilkins looks at the impact the attacks are having on the lives of survivors and what it could mean if extracting gold, the country's primary source of income, becomes too dangerous.

“Boukare,” whose name has been changed to protect his identity, is a survivor of the Yirgou massacre.

The attack by an unknown terror group in June this year targeted a small informal gold mining site, like this one, and killed at least 160 people, mostly mine workers.

It is a windy day in Marange, Chanakira village. Small clouds scuddle the blue sky giving it a blurred look. About 110 kilometers southwest of Mutare, Norah Mwastuku (48) a subsistence farmer sits at the verandah and contemplates when the first rains will arrive. 

She anxiously looks at her fields, decorated with mulched holes.

Mwastuku is one of the farmers who have embraced the Pfumvudza program — a concept where crops are planted on zero tillage in a bid to conserve water and inputs on a small piece of land.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe’s dispossessed white farmers are trickling back to their land, this time as tenants to Black farmers, officials from the country’s governing and opposition parties claimed Monday.

In an interview with Anadolu Agency, George Makombe, a top official of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and liberation war fighter, said reports of Black farmers renting out the land they repossessed from white farmers two decades ago are true.

For Zimbabwean organic farmer, Elizabeth Mpofu, access to healthy food is liberation.

Millions of people across the world go to bed hungry. Scores do not have access to nutritious food owing to an inequitable global food system focused on industrial mass food production. The food from this system is less nutritious, more expensive and less friendly to the environment.

 Former Zimbabwean deputy Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara has warned South Africa against implementing a chaotic approach in the expropriation of land calling on them to learn from their northern neighbours. 

Said Mutambara at a presentation at Rhodes University:

“There is a problem that you must watch out for as South Africans, land expropriation is a good idea but might be abused by the elite who take a good idea and use it as a political tool.”

South Africa’s land panel finally produced its report at the end of July. At 144 pages it’s an impressive document, making all the right noises. South Africa, like Zimbabwe, left the land issue for too long. 25 years after freedom, at least now a serious move is being made in South Africa. But will it make a difference?