Climate change and rural livelihoods in Southern Africa: An agenda for policy-oriented research

Abstract

This report is the outcome of an extensive review of the literature and the debates on climate change and landbased livelihoods in Southern Africa. In the context of the converging climate and food crises, it provides an overview of the politics of climate change, its impacts, and responses in Southern Africa, and sketches the outlines of PLAAS’s research agenda on the intersections of climate change, agrarian change and rural livelihoods. As such, it is an open-ended document, intended to identify and formulate questions, not to present answers. The purpose of the report is to set out in broad terms the way in which seek to connect our work on agrarian change and rural livelihoods to the questions raised by the climate crisis currently facing our societies.