Vision and Mission

PLAAS engages in research, training, policy development and advocacy in relation to land and agrarian reform, rural governance and natural resource management.

PLAAS is committed to social change that empowers the poor, builds democracy and enhances sustainable livelihoods. Gender equity is integral to these goals.

PLAAS aims for rigour in its scholarship, excellence in its training, and effectiveness in its policy     support and advocacy. It strives to play a critical yet constructive role in processes of social, economic  and political transformation.

PLAAS was founded in 1995 as a specialist unit in the School of Government at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Cape Town. Since then, PLAAS has developed a proven track record of undertaking high-quality research on land and agrarian reform, poverty, and natural resource management in South Africa and the southern African region.

Besides research and postgraduate teaching, PLAAS undertakes training, provides advisory, facilitation and evaluation services and is active in the field of national policy development. Through these activities, and by seeking to apply the tools of critical scholarship to questions of policy and practice, we seek to develop new knowledge and fresh approaches to the transformation of society in southern Africa.

• the land restitution and redistribution programmes, initiated by the post-apartheid democratic state in South Africa

• land tenure reform

• emerging regimes of natural resource management

• rural livelihoods and farm-household production systems

• chronic poverty and rural development

• processes of institutional restructuring and reorientation in support of land and agrarian reform in South Africa.

• research

• support to national policy development

•  training: post-graduate teaching; and short course training

• advising, facilitating and evaluating