Responsible and Smart Land Management Interventions: An African Context

Prof. dr. ir. Walter Timo de Vries, is Chair of Land Management at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) since 2015. He is the Study Dean for Geodesy and Geoinformation and the Director of the Master and PhD programs in Land Management and Land Tenure. He has worked in numerous international projects in Asia, Africa and South America, dealing with land information and land reform, geospatial data infrastructures and professional training and education in land issues, cadaster and information management. His current research interests at TUM include smart and responsible land management, urban and rural development and capacity development for land policy. Recent publications include the CRC / Taylor and Francis book ‘Advances in Responsible Land Administration’, and articles like: ‘Responsible Land Management - Concept and Application in a Territorial Rural Context’, ‘Human Geodesy - Shaping a New Science and Profession for the World of Tomorrow’, and ‘Economic Versus Social Values in Land and Property Management: Two Sides of the Same Coin?’ amongst others.

Prof. John Bugri, is an Associate Professor of Land Economy at the Department of Land Economy, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. He is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Built Environment. He holds a PhD from the University of Greenwich, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a BSc (Hons) in Land Economy from KNUST. He is particularly interested in people and land relations and focuses his research on the implications of man-land relations for sustainable land use and development, the dynamics of changes in political ecology on gender and livelihood sustainability and the broader role of land governance and policy issues in poverty reduction in both agrarian and urban communities in developing countries. He has published widely in both local and international Journals and serves as a reviewer for several Journals. He was the Country Coordinator of the World Bank Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) for Ghana between 2011 and 2012 and currently the Node Coordinator for Anglophone West Africa under the Network of Excellence for Land Governance in Africa (NELGA), a GIZ funded project on Strengthening Advisory Capacities for Land Governance in Africa.

Dr. Fatima Mandhu, is a post-doctoral fellow and lecturer at the University of Zambia. The post-doctoral research title is “Oppression of women and nature in artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) in Zambia. She has served as Head of the Private Law Department at the University of Zambia in the School of Law. Her current interest in terms of research are mining law, land law and gender. She lectures in land law and property relation as well as medical law. She is the project leader of “Mineral Law in Africa: Zambia/South collaborative project” from the Zambian side. She is participating member of the Southern African Node under the Network of Excellence for Land Governance in Africa (NELGA/NUST). She is the team leader for the scoping study on land governance and is also involved in teaching on the LLM program and supervises both undergraduate as well as postgraduate students researching in land law. She has published a number of articles and has written book chapters. Recent publications include: "Land Reform Policy Supporting Individual Land Rights and Diversification of the Zambian Economy” and “Land Titles or Deeds Registration as it Relates to the New Model of Land Registration System for Zambia”.