About...

Phuhlisani NPC aims to generate lasting solutions  based on research, dialogue and reflexive practice. We strive to assist rural citizens to secure their rights and facilitate engagement to combat poverty, landlessness and tenure insecurity.

Phuhlisani NPC is a Public Benefit Organisation approved by the South African Revenue Service. Our PBO number is 9300068708 

Our learning spiral

Phuhlisani's roots are deeply embedded in South Africa's Civil Society Organisation (CSO) and land research sectors. While we have made significant progress over the years, we acknowledge there is still much to learn and achieve.
Our organization's history spans decades, with many of our members having been active in various organizations from the 1970s through the democratic transition of the 1990s. Some of our colleagues transitioned from the NGO sector to establish organizations focused on addressing poverty, inequality, and landlessness in partnership with the newly established democratic and developmental state. Others continue to serve as thought leaders within research institutes at tertiary institutions.
In 2003, Phuhlisani Solutions' founding members established what we envisioned as a principled and ethical consultancy, aiming to provide quality services and value for public money. However, as time passed, achieving these aims became increasingly challenging. We found ourselves questioning the social value of consulting in an environment characterized by an increasingly ineffective and anti-developmental state.
The "Betrayal of the Promise" (2017) report and the subsequent Zondo Commission Report confirmed our concerns, revealing systematic attempts to develop a "shadow state" benefiting "a constellation of rent-seeking networks." Our decision to cease bidding for consultancy work was influenced by recurring experiences: we would complete research, develop plans, and propose policies commissioned by the state, only to see this work shelved without implementation. Many publicly funded research studies remained embargoed, their findings blocked from entering the public domain.
This institutional dysfunction has left land reform, land rights management, agricultural and rural development, livelihoods diversification, household food security, and poverty eradication fragmented, both in policy and practice. Recent research has shown that the land reform programme has been increasingly co-opted, becoming a vehicle for accumulation by the few rather than benefiting the many.
Following our reconstitution as a non-profit company in 2015, we have undertaken a fundamental rethinking of our experience in the land sector to discover fresh pathways forward. We are now focused on developing practical alternatives to failed policies and practices, based on co-learning and action for change. Our aim is to strengthen essential literacies and capabilities required to meet South Africa's numerous challenges in the 21st century through practical engagement on the ground.
​Phuhlisani NPC currently has three directors whose profiles appear below. 

Phuhlisani NPC Directors

David Mayson

David is the Phuhlisani NPC CEO. Previously he worked for over ten years for the Surplus People Project, a longstanding land sector NGO before founding Phuhlisani Solutions.  He has a deep and applied knowledge of land and agrarian reform focusing on the integration of the various processes of land acquisition with institutional development, land rights management systems and agricultural development.
He has engaged with these issues at the practical level of implementation, at the research level, at a broader district planning level and at the level of writing strategy and policy. He also has extensive facilitation and project management experience.​ David has a Masters in Sociology from UCT.

Ursula Smith

 Ursula is Phuhlisani Finance and Administration Director. She provides logistical support across all aspects of Phuhlisani's operations. Prior to this Ursula worked for sixteen years at the City of Cape Town and nine years in the private sector with a leading training, consulting and skills development company.

Dr. Siyabulela Manona

Having cut his teeth on land matters in the NGO sector, Siyabulela Manona moved to business, and still straddles between the two sectors to the present.  In 1997 he left the NGO sector and was one of two founding members of a consultancy, Manona Field & Associate cc,  which provided a range of services on land matters, to all spheres of government and the private sector, from which he resigned in 2007.  In 2003 he was one of the founding members and a Director of Umhlaba Consulting Group, a position he vacated in 2022.  In 2009 he was appointed as Director: Land Governance Policy and Implementation at Phuhlisani NPC, where he is now anchored.  
He has made significant contributions to national policy processes in land reform, smallholder irrigation revitalisation, water allocation reform, smallholder agriculture, land reform, and land governance.  He has been central in a range of research, policy, and implementation assignments for various government parastatals in all three spheres of government. Since 2010 he has been involved in intricate groundbreaking work, providing support to Water Services Authorities (WSAs) in the former homelands of the Eastern Cape Province, in navigating their way around complex land tenure and legal impediments on their linear and nodal infrastructure projects.
Siyabulela Manona holds a B Soc Sci (Rhodes), a BA (Hons) in Development Studies (University of Fort Hare), a MPhil in Land and Agrarian Studies (UWC), and a PhD in Geography (Rhodes). His research interests include: local economic development, land administration, and land governance.

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Associates

Dr. Rick de Satge​ is a Senior Research Associate and a former Director of Phuhlisani NPC. He has 40 years' experience in the CSO and consulting spheres, working on land reform, land rights management, sustainable livelihoods, rural and urban development and popular education. He has worked extensively in South Africa, Zimbabwe and to a lesser extent in Botswana in a variety of development settings. He now curates Phuhlisani's land information website knowledgebase.land. He works as a part-time researcher for the Land Portal Foundation researching and compiling African country profiles and thematic portfolios.
​He holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town.  

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