Our affiliations

​Phuhlisani is a member of the Land Network National Engagement Strategy (LANDNNES). This network brings together different CSO's and individual tenure specialists working in the rural and urban land sectors. Network members make submissions on land, planning and tenure reform legislation.
Since 2017 Phuhlisani NPC has had a working relationship with the ​Land Portal, an international land sector NGO . 

Our work at a glance

The slide show below provides a rapid overview of our work in 2025 and our new trajectory 2026-2028

2025 Progress update

David Mayson heads up Phuhlisani's work nationally and in the Western and Northern Cape. Dr Siyabu Manona focuses on work in the Eastern Cape while contributing to national land policy and practice. Ursula Smith keeps the organisation running smoothly.

​Phuhlisani NPC continues its work in land reform, land administration, rural development, and community support across South Africa. This summary provides insights into our current positioning as a development intermediary, followed by a detailed review of our activities and progress, together with our reflections on the challenges and opportunities we faced in 2025.

Our core role: Phuhlisani as a Development Intermediary
In South Africa's post-restitution landscape, land ownership rarely translates automatically into development. Communities holding communal land face a maze of government departments with overlapping mandates, a legacy of broken commitments, weak institutional capacity, and development processes that stall – not for lack of will, but for lack of coordination. This is the gap Phuhlisani works in.

We function as a development intermediary – an organisation that positions itself between community structures, government, civil society, and private actors to make integrated development actually happen. That means building coordination where it is absent, translating commitments into delivery, unlocking resources and technical expertise, and holding partners accountable when systems fail to act. It is not development done for communities, but development made possible with them.

Our work at Elandskloof illustrates what this looks like in practice. The community emerged from forced removals and twenty years of departmental administration during which little substantive progress was made. Restitution had been achieved on paper; transformation on the ground had not. Phuhlisani's role has been to draw together the Elandskloof CPA, multiple government departments, conservation bodies, legal actors, and agricultural partners into a coherent programme spanning institutional governance, land use planning, village establishment, agricultural revival, and biodiversity stewardship.

​A central insight driving our approach is that getting the state to deliver on what it commits to is itself a core development task. Intermediary support is not a substitute for government responsibility – it is the practical means by which communities can press that responsibility into action.
The goal, always, is that communities gain agency and resilience rather than dependency. Phuhlisani works to build the people, systems, and trust that allow Communal Property Institutions to govern themselves well, engage partners on equal terms, and sustain development long after intensive support ends. Elandskloof is one site – but the model speaks to the needs of thousands of communal land-holding institutions across South Africa.

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Funded Programmes: Fostering community development, inclusive land governance and learning for responsive policy 

Elandskloof: From Administration to Community-Led Renewal
Our work at Elandskloof represents one of Phuhlisani's most comprehensive, integrated development initiatives. The community returned to Elandskloof in 1996 following a successful restitution claim, but subsequent decades were marked by severe and debilitating conflict, during which the CPA was placed under administration in 2005. The lifting of that administration order in August 2025 marked a watershed moment.

As David Mayson, our CEO, observed: 'The difference in the community is just crazy. All people are just wanting to move now, like, hey, this is our land.'
Phuhlisani entered into a comprehensive agreement with Elandskloof CPA in 2022 to assist in an integrated development process. Our support encompasses four core components:

• Land Use Management System (LUMS) and township establishment, including all associated services: water, sewage, roads, and refuse management.
• Supporting productive use of the land, with agriculture as a primary focus area, including revival of former orchards and new agricultural initiatives.
• Broader institutional arrangements, including the establishment of a company to manage commercial components alongside the CPA.
• Governance support, assisting the CPA and its committee with compliance issues and community engagement.

This is, fundamentally, a capacity-building process addressing both people's skills and institutional systems and structures.

Land Use Management System and Township Establishment
A comprehensive Land Use Management System has been developed and adopted by the community, providing a vision for Elandskloof's future growth and linked planning instruments. However, implementation remains blocked on a critical issue: determining which land will be used for what purpose and by whom – whether for the community company, individual households, or other uses.

The township establishment process has been stalled for over two decades. When SPP (Surplus People Project – an associate NGO in the land sector) first engaged with the community in 1996-1998, a planning consortium developed a detailed plan identifying plots and mapped the residential area. But the fundamental challenge remains unresolved: who will pay for the bulk water and sewage infrastructure, and who will maintain it in perpetuity?
The situation is complex. Elandskloof is not a municipal township; it is a restitution claim imposed on top of municipal jurisdiction, and the municipality notes it would never have planned a village in such an expensive-to-service location. The community has agreed that the township residential section will become municipal land, with individuals receiving title to residential plots, while the remainder stays as CPA land. Yet for 25 years, people have continued living in shacks.

In 2023, the Cederberg Municipality approved the excision but requires a Memorandum of Understanding between the municipality, the CPA, and the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development, specifying roles and responsibilities and clarifying who will pay for what going forward. Phuhlisani has been intensively engaged with both the municipality and the department to draft and finalize this MOU.  This is an ongoing challenge with both the municipality and the department unclear of their role in such developments.

The CPA and Phuhlisani are looking at different ways to enable an “implementation agency” to be appointed to drive the development - the appointment of ASLA by the municipality as its approved implementation agent for housing development or through the CPA appointing them directly. The involvement of the mayor of Cederberg Municipality, who is himself from Elandskloof, has facilitated a commitment to accelerate resolution of the township and housing issues. Meetings have been scheduled to clarify status and move the process forward.

Housing and Services
A critical prerequisite for housing development is securing water security. The existing water system, drawing from a reservoir and distributing via pipes across the valley, has not been maintained and regularly fails, leaving Elandskloofers without water for two-week periods. The CPA has recently employed a maintenance team to service the farm's water system–a positive step but insufficient for the scale required. Secure domestic water remains a critical unresolved issue.

​Sewerage systems are entirely localized per house–essentially small pipes into the ground which risks polluting a pristine waterway running through the property. Phuhlisani has been pushing for municipal appointment of ASLA who can navigate both the bureaucratic requirements for housing provision and the complex governance arrangements required.

When housing registration was raised, it was discovered that Elandskloof residents were not on the municipal housing list, believing themselves to be a special case exempted from standard procedures. Following a process facilitated by Phuhlisani, all community members are now registered on the housing list. The excision process to establish the township has passed through the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development (required under the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act), but is now stalled awaiting verification that the boundaries on paper match the boundaries on the ground, after which the matter goes to the Surveyor General for formal plan establishment.

Alternative Building Materials and the Creche Project
Phuhlisani and WWF have collaborated over the past two years, with a particularly exciting development around alternative building materials. Through partnership with Noncrete–a company producing bricks using alien vegetation from clearing operations – and with funding from Green Trust, a creche has been constructed at Elandskloof demonstrating both the viability and benefits of this approach.

The process exemplifies integrated innovation. Noncrete, supported by both Green Trust and separate CSIR funding, developed and rigorously tested brick compositions using cleared alien vegetation. Bricks were subject to fire testing at 1,200 degrees centigrade for three hours and stress testing under load–all with positive results. Noncrete also designed a flat roof system requiring only four steel rods, functioning through arch-like design principles without the extensive steel traditionally required.

The creche construction has provided employment for six community members trained to make bricks on site, with all materials sourced locally from the cleared areas and transported within a 750-meter radius–a near-zero carbon footprint. As David Mayson notes: 'From that point of view it's very exciting. So the idea with the creche is, come on down to the creche, see this. Do you want to make your house out of this, or do you want to make it out of conventional brick?' The completed creche will be launched by the end of April 2026 with participation from CSIR, WWF, and the provincial premier, representing a significant demonstration of viability for alternative approaches to rural housing construction and creation of a demand for alien vegetation – addressing the huge negative impact that such vegetation has on our water resources .

The creche itself raises important questions for community discussion: will it function primarily as a creche, or can it serve other purposes? Additional funding has been secured for interior furnishings, and the community has committed to maintaining it as a functional resource.

Agriculture and Productive Land Use
The most significant constraint on agricultural revival is water security. Elandskloof has excellent underground water sources, and areas have been identified for borehole drilling. Phuhlisani is working with the Department of Agriculture on water systems development, with a particular focus on reviving Buchu cultivation. A proposal to plant six hectares of supplementary Buchu (alongside existing wild harvesting occurring every two years) is under development, with samples being taken for testing and marketing. This initiative, if funded by the department and provincial government (or other investment) offers both employment and income opportunities.

The original oranges and pear orchards have deteriorated significantly. Phuhlisani is facilitating a process with the CPA to revive a section of orchard with the objective of producing organic frozen fruit juice for the Cape Town market. Marketing and pricing analysis is underway to assess viability.

​A third agricultural component addresses direct community access to land. With Cape Nature support, detailed analysis has identified no-go zones (wetlands, sensitive areas) and suitable cultivation areas. The intention is to enable people to take initiative themselves. However, much of the land has not been farmed for at least ten years, meaning an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is required–a process that is expensive, time-consuming, and increasingly a source of frustration for community members eager to move forward. CASIDRA (WCDoA) is likely to fund the EIA and other assessments (hydrogeological analysis, hydrological assessment for potential dam development should 125 hectares be planted), but securing specialists (particularly an ecologist and hydrologist) has proven difficult, with timelines a persistent challenge.

Beyond these initiatives, Elandskloof has significant natural resources. Proteas grow wild and sustainably, with farmers already paying to harvest them, and new interest has emerged in cultivating a particular protea variety. These represent opportunities for sustainable harvesting and income generation.

Conservation and Biodiversity at Elandskloof
A biodiversity assessment conducted with WWF, combined with mapping of alien vegetation, led to a proposal that Elandskloof be registered as a conservation area. The Cape Nature Stewardship Committee indicated that given the pristine condition and incredible biodiversity of the area, it could qualify as a nature reserve–one step higher than the suggested protected environment designation. The December AGM of the CPA was very enthused by this possibility and mandated the Committee to undertake further detailed proposal development for community approval.

A nature reserve designation carries significant benefits. The residential and agricultural areas would be zoned separately. Beyond tax benefits (which would benefit meaningful commercial operations), conservation designation would provide support for alien vegetation clearing–effectively reducing the cost burden of land development. It would also enable better river flow. Adjacent to Elandskloof lies Cape Nature property and private farms registered as nature reserves, creating opportunities for integrated conservation area and eco-tourism development.

Governance and Institutional Capacity
Phuhlisani has supported the CPA committee in establishing robust financial and administrative systems. Rushaan Toefy Financial Services worked with the treasurer to implement online financial management systems replacing manual handwritten records. Staff member Willem Fortuin has developed comprehensive CPA administration systems. Regular AGMs are now held, with reports submitted to the CPA registrar. The lifting of the administration order has particularly strengthened the CPA committee, which is now increasing in strength and represents an important structure for community engagement.

The sustainability of this work remains a concern. Phuhlisani's engagement at Elandskloof has been primarily funded by the DG Murray Trust (R1 million annually over two years), but future funding is uncertain. As David Mayson reflects: 'If we pull out now, I'm very worried that things could start spiraling off again. Because I think our role here is as a critical intermediary bringing Department of Agriculture, DLRRD, the municipality, Water Affairs, WWF and the private sector to realise development potential in Elandskloof which has been blocked for so long.' The role as catalyst and intermediary remains crucial.

Strengthening Land Rights and Land Administration in South Africa
Phuhlisani, in partnership with the Land and Accountability Research Centre (LARC) and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), continues its work on a groundbreaking initiative to address crucial land administration deficits. Approximately 70% of people in South Africa live in situations where their land rights are not recorded in any formal land administration system. These rights may be reasonably secure within local social contexts but lack full recognition, are subject to legal uncertainty, and deny rights holders the full benefits of public recognition and citizenship, particularly regarding access to both state and private services.

The Project involves a number of components:

1. Detailed “community engagement” research in different local contexts where rights are off-register with the aim to try to understand the “local land law” – the local land administration system that the different actors in the context have developed.
2. Detailed desktop research on key themes
3. Engagements with the state and other actors, sharing the findings of the research and facilitating a process through which a framework for a transformed land administration system is developed – one which includes these rights that are off-register and the core elements of the “local land laws”.

The community engagement research focused on five diverse contexts: a land redistribution project in Limpopo, a restitution CPA in Northwest Province (overlaid with traditional leadership), labour tenancy in KZN, a quit rent context in the Eastern Cape, and an Act 9 area (Concordia) in the Northern Cape. Research teams have conducted detailed investigations into how land rights are understood, managed, and administered on the ground, the strengths and limitations of off-register systems, and how these articulate with local authorities and municipal, provincial, and national institutions.
A critical shift in the response from the state has occurred in recent years. Historically, relationships between the state and civil society on off-register rights were highly conflictual. More recently, the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development (DLRRD) and COGTA has moved toward collaborative engagement with civil society

Building on initial roundtable engagements, Phuhlisani and partners are now convening a think tank of selected invited specialists to develop conceptual frameworks for an integrated land administration system. As David Mayson explains: 'What we basically are saying is, let's step back, guys. We've got to look at all these components to develop a new land administration framework, which incorporates and takes into account current off-register rights.'
Participants will likely include representatives from the Deeds Office, Surveyor General, and other key agencies. The project's initial contract ended in December but has been extended on a no-cost basis, reflecting strong support for both the collaborative approach and the critical policy issues being addressed.

LandNNES: A Network for Land Advocacy and Knowledge
Phuhlisani has been appointed as Fiscal Host for LandNNES, a network seeking to amplify civil society voice on land issues–an area still lacking coherent independent advocacy. The role provides opportunities to influence national and international land initiatives while balancing multiple stakeholder interests through the International Land Coalition (ILC) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) funding mechanisms.

One of the projects of LandNNES during this year was the Safeguarding Communal Land Rights: Empowering Communities, Advocating for Reforms, and Fostering Stakeholder Dialogue in South Africa. Phuhlisani through LandNNES collaborated with the Advancing Land-Based Investment Governance (ALIGN) collective on an initiative examining dispossession on communal land without application of customary law or the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act (IPILRA). The project examined five case studies and held testimony-based sessions that proved particularly powerful. Participants critiqued interim procedures documents that guide departmental officials, offering both broad-level and clause-by-clause analysis. These findings will be integrated into the broader land administration project discussed above.

​Another LandNNES project focused on climate change adaptation and land. It was funded through a Global Catalyst fund (administered by the International Land Coalition – to which LandNNES is affiliated. Detailed research was undertaken and then the findings were taken into a Food System and Climate Adaptation Policy Engagement Workshop with a broader network of climate change and food systems focused organisations. A strategy meeting held in December drew together the steering committee to consolidate approach and direction.

New Initiatives and Partnerships
Expanding Our Scope
Driehoek, Algeria, and Wuppertal: Integrating Land Administration with Biodiversity ConservationBuilding on the LandNNES network, Phuhlisani developed a proposal to integrate land administration support with biodiversity conservation in three areas within the Cederberg: Algeria, and Wuppertal. The work emerged from a call through the International Land Coalition asking whether organizations in the Western Cape wanted to engage in biodiversity work within the Cape Floral Kingdom.

The approach recognizes a fundamental principle: well-designed land administration systems enable effective conservation and sustainable resource management. Without clear rights and responsibilities, land degenerates into open access, preventing conservation objectives. The integration seeks to ensure that when conservationists identify threatened species or habitats, appropriate governance structures and land administration systems are in place to enable communities to be compensated and engaged in protection.

A joint proposal developed with the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) has been submitted to Rainforest Trust. EWT will focus on downstream conservation work with private landowners around fish, butterflies, and broader biodiversity. Phuhlisani will work in Algeria and Wuppertal, combining land administration support (developing Communal Land Use Management Plans and Policies–CLUMPPs) with biodiversity conservation objectives. The intention is that both communities will consider nature conservation designation of an agreed level, with appropriate zoning of certain areas and agreement on conservation practices.

Phuhlisani has been appointed by the Land Rights Management Facility of DLRRD to provide mediation support in Algeria, where significant conflict exists. This mediation work provides the foundation for future collaborative development initiatives. Wuppertal, owned by the Moravian Church, presents a different challenge: while local structures (including a representatives' council covering 14 outstations) are receptive, the church ownership requires institutional navigation and has not yet been resolved.

Source to Sea: Managing the Doring/Olifants River Catchment
Phuhlisani's work with WWF and the Freshwater Research Centre on the Source to Sea initiative represents a long-term (15-20 year) partnership focused on the Doring/Olifants river catchment in the north of the West Coast, including the Matzikama area and Ebenhaeser. The objective is to establish a core intermediary group (anchored by Freshwater Research Centre and Phuhlisani) coordinating multiple initiatives aligned around sustainable land and water management and river health.

The project encompasses diverse but interconnected components: alien vegetation removal (essential for water flow), wastewater treatment works improvements, coordination with water users’ associations to ensure appropriate water allocation and use, and coordination with municipalities. All require facilitation to bring different catchment actors into collaborative management while addressing both environmental and social objectives.
A direct beneficiary group comprises artisanal fishers at the Olifants River mouth (including Ebenhaeser community members) whose fish stocks depend on healthy river flows and ecological reserves maintained in accordance with the Water Act requirements. The project is currently seeking funding beyond initial support provided by the Dutch embassy.

Ongoing Consultancies
Building Partnerships for Change
Our consultancy work continues to yield significant outcomes.  As we have explained elsewhere, Phuhlisani has an approach to enter consultancy contracts where such consultancies fit within Phuhlisani’s strategic direction and are anticipated to involve longer term support to the initiatives.

ACWA Power: Enterprise Development in the Northern Cape
Phuhlisani's long relationship with ACWA Power, an independent power producer, centers on facilitating the company's enterprise development spending obligations (approximately 0.6% of turnover). Initial work engaged a share equity scheme in need of significant development. More recent focus has been on supporting farmers on commonage land, trust-owned, and CPA-owned properties across the Northern Cape, with emphasis on improving water and animal watering infrastructure, fencing, and general farm productivity.

Work has included drilling multiple boreholes, establishing animal watering systems, and providing support to individual black commercial farmers. The initiative is now shifting toward investment in improved breeding stock (bulls and rams) to enhance productivity. Northern Cape municipal commonage, established through the Municipal Commonage Programme, has proven particularly productive terrain for this work.

Lima, an NGO supporting smallholder farmers  has become involved in supporting a fledgling farmers association. Phuhlisani's objective is to encourage coordination among multiple IPPs operating in the region, proposing a common Area-Based Plan (ABP) for the community area (not municipal-wide) that can align funding streams from different power producers toward coherent rural development and land reform objectives. The Department of Agriculture has proven a constructive partner in this process. Annual funding from ACWA Power amounts to approximately $2 million, earmarked for direct enterprise and community development.

Complex Transitions and Emergent Challenges: Suurbraak and TRANCRAA
Phuhlisani was recently appointed by the Department of Agriculture to work in Suurbraak, an Act 9 area where the TRANCRAA (Transformation of Certain Rural Areas Act) process, initiated in 2002, remains unresolved. The appointment was made without prior coordination with the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development, despite the fact that Phuhlisani's work is directly related to TRANCRAA implementation.

The complexity is institutional: the land is held in the name of Swellendam Municipality, but the Suurbraak community wishes it transferred to a CPA. When the Act 9 process began, a CPA was established and eventually registered in September 2025. However, three years ago, DALRRD indicated the municipality could not act on the land because it was the subject of an incomplete TRANCRAA process, effectively freezing activity.

Phuhlisani has been tasked with developing a Communal Land Use Management Plan and Policy (CLUMPP) and interim lease agreements to be signed between farmers and the municipality. However, engagement has been difficult. When the CPA committee signed off on initial proposals, a full community meeting was required before the constitution could be finalized and registered. Previous municipal leases (nine-year, 11-month terms) ended in 2022-2023, after which DALRRD prevented renewal. Instead, all land users received letters to continue as they were until TRANCRAA completion, with no payment to anyone and no management of the land.

​A significant governance problem has emerged: the CPA was only registered in September 2025, yet DLRRD has determined that the committee members' five-year terms of office begin from registration, not from their election in 2016 as stipulated in the CPA constitution. This creates confusion and conflict. The ongoing lack of coordination and cooperation between key state departments with national and provincial competencies poses a serious challenge to implementation.

Research and Knowledge Contribution
Phuhlisani's specialized website knowledgebase.land provides access to more than 6,700 news articles across a wide range of land-related themes. User data from March 2026 indicates that to date we have had:

• Total Page Views: 165,611
• Total Sessions: 112,667

Users also have access to comprehensive African country profiles hosted on the Land Portal.
Recent collaborative work has included Land Portal webinars with international participation from Uganda, Indonesia, and other regions, extending conversations beyond South Africa.

This work serves dual purposes: sharing insights into our practices and learnings while critically examining our own assumptions and approaches.
Knowledgebase.land makes use of a former Phuhlisani Director and Senior Researcher, Rick de Satgé, who maintains the website as a social commitment on a voluntary basis. Phuhlisani notes with thanks coding support from Divan Egers who completely upgraded our news curation tool without charge.
​For more information watch our explainer video below.

Phuhlisani Governance and Institutional Development
Phuhlisani has developed a comprehensive policy manual to guide organizational governance, which the current board will be asked to approve. Following approval, the organization will seek to expand board membership with three new members and a younger team member to ensure continuity and refresh of organizational leadership.

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Looking ahead

Phuhlisani remains committed to sustainable rural development particularly in land reform contexts, improved land administration for those whose rights are off-register, and community empowerment. We recognize the complex and often contentious nature of land reform and development in South Africa, and we continue to refine our approaches based on experience and learning.

Several cross-cutting themes emerge across our 2025 work. First, Phuhlisani's role as intermediary and catalyst is critical. We bring together state agencies, civil society, private sector actors and communities toward development potential that has long been blocked. Yet this intermediation requires sustained funding and presence–pulling out prematurely risks dismantling fragile progress.

Second, integration is essential. Effective rural development cannot be siloed. Land administration must be linked to productive use of land, to water security, to environmental conservation, to governance capacity, and to service delivery. Elandskloof demonstrates this: township establishment cannot proceed without resolving water security; productive agriculture depends on water systems; conservation supports both environmental and economic objectives; governance capacity underpins all else.

Third, time and process matter. Bureaucratic processes must be followed methodically even when frustrating, as skipping steps ultimately leads nowhere. Yet the timelines of state processes (EIAs, subdivision approvals, municipal planning) often clash with community urgency and the need for momentum. This tension is ongoing and will require continued navigation.

Fourth, innovations in sustainable development–alternative building materials, diversified income streams from alien clearing and conservation, integrated conservation with community development–are emerging and show promise. Yet mainstreaming and scaling require demonstration, replication, and sustained support.

We are actively seeking new partnerships and funding opportunities to expand our impact while remaining mindful of the need to balance growth with the quality and depth of our interventions. The challenges we face in land reform and rural development in South Africa are significant, but so too are the opportunities for meaningful change.

​We invite stakeholders to engage with us in this ongoing process of learning, adaptation, and transformation.
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