Description: "Nordiska Afrikainstitutet = The Nordic Africa Institute."
Brief description:
Prosper B. Matondi is the Executive Director of Ruzivo Trust, a not for profit organization based in Harare, Zimbabwe. He holds a PhD in Rural Development from the Swedish University of Agricultural University based in Uppsala, Sweden. He has more than 15 years experience researching on land, natural resources management, environmental policy and planning in Zimbabwe, within the southern African region and internationally. He has widely published and has made a contribution to many international, regional and international networks on land and agrarian reform issues. He sits on various research boards and is currently supervising PhD students working on land issues in Zimbabwe and beyond.
Kjell Havnevik is senior researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute and head of the institute's research cluster on Rural and Agrarian Dynamics, Property and Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa. He holds a PhD from the University of Bradford (development studies 1988) and has been working with universities and research institutes in Norway, Sweden and Tanzania. From 1996, he was professor of Rural Development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden. He has published a number of book and articles on African development issues with special focus on rural development, natural resource management, the strategies of international financial institutions in Africa, and development assistance. He has a wide experience as a teacher and lecturer on African and development issues. Atakilte Beyene is a researcher in rural development. He is based at the Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. His research focuses on institutions, and the relationships between smallholder agricultural systems, property rights and national agricultural policies. He has facilitated and conducted extensive empirical field studies on livelihood systems, food insecurity and risk management strategies, natural resources management, and recent developments in commercial farming, including bio-fuels. He is also a lecturer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden where he also doubles up as coordinator of an international MSc program in Integrated Water Resources Management.Review Quotes:
"Biofuels, Land Grabbing and Food Security in Africa represents the most substantial collection of research to date on the implications of global investment for the local poor." --James Smith, University of Edinburgh
"A timely set of probes into one of Africa's burning issues. It assembles concrete findings of why and how the continent's land resources are being packaged in new forms and served up to outside corporations and sovereign funds to be used to meet the latest scarcities of fuel and food of developed and emerging countries - and how these processes are at the expense of food security in Africa and of the rights and livelihoods of its farmers." --Lionel Cliffe, Emeritus Professor, University of Leeds "Biofuels, Land Grabbing and Food Security in Africa provides a rigorous and convincing analysis on the unfolding re-colonisation of Africa in the name of foreign investment." --Mandivamba Rukuni, Director, Wisdom Afrika Leadership Academy "This is a most welcome and timely addition to the growing literature on biofuels. It comprises an interesting mix of country (Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana) and broad studies, which raises serious concerns about the future of African smallholder farmers, usefully critiques the famous Brazilian biofuels "success story", and makes a strong and surely unanswerable case for increased African intellectual engagement in this disturbing and highly dangerous field." --Robin Palmer, Mokoro Ltd, Oxford, formerly Global Land Adviser, Oxfam GB