Each year, the United Nations uses World Water Day as an opportunity to raise awareness and demand action around the global water crisis. Each year, there is a theme. This…
Just another drop in the bucket on World Water Day?
Impact story #2: From land grabs to the Anthropocene
A new impact story, From land grabs to the Anthropocene: exploring the politics of resources is the second in our series looking back at a decade of STEPS Centre research…
From remunicipalisation to reprivatisation of water? The case of Mozambique
After widespread privatisation in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, many water services around the world began to be transferred back into public control. This ‘remunicipalisation’ has been welcomed by the…
Livelihoods on the edge: contested mangroves in Kachchh
There is a real buzz about Mundra village on the Gulf of Kachchh coast, one of the fastest growing industrial hubs in India. A sprawling port, two of India’s biggest…
How water became a casualty of Mozambique’s debt crisis
One interesting aspect of doing fieldwork is that you get to understand some theoretical premises better. One such premise related to my PhD research is that the water/development nexus can…
The financialisation of nature
Financialization describes an economic system or process that aims to reduce all values into a financial instrument. As part of this process, nature is treated as a private resource or…
Next steps to strengthen global land governance
by Ruth Hall and Ian Scoones Four years ago voluntary guidelines on the governance of land and land tenure were agreed at the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation…
Nexus, resource conflict and social justice: are we speaking the same language?
Nexus network meetings are a bit like a bar scene in Star Wars, joked Professor Mike Bradshaw, from the University of Warwick: “What we need is a universal translator to…
Africa’s land rush
There is a rush on for African farmland – a phenomenon unmatched since colonial times. Africa’s land rush, and the implications for rural livelihoods and agrarian change, is the subject of a…
How the Water-Energy-Food ‘Nexus’ in Asia affects real lives
By Carl Middleton, Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University In Asia and globally, the water-energy-food nexus has received growing attention from policy makers, researchers, and practitioners….