M. Adil Sait

Adil Sait is a development geographer at the Department of Geography & Environment, LSE. His doctoral research, supervised by Dr. Richard Perkins and Prof. Claire Mercer, on mining and African development from a decolonial perspective has been submitted in September 2025. It included fieldwork in Namibia, where he is a visiting fellow at the Institute for Land, Livelihoods, and Housing (ILLH) at the Namibia University of Science and Technology.

Sait holds a BSc. in Urban Planning from UCL (First Class Honours, 2015-18), and an MSc. in Local Economic Development from LSE (Distinction, 2018-19). His masters’ thesis on livelihoods, urbanization, and local economic development in Monrovia, Liberia, was funded by the LSE Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, and awarded an LSE Africa Best Dissertation Prize (2018-19).

Sait was an analyst with BuroHappold and research assistant for the LSE Kuwait Programme. He has also been involved in projects with UN ECLAC (Cuba); the World Bank (sustainable cities, Egypt); the Technical University of Munich (land management; sustainability transitions); UN-Habitat, Global Land Tool Network (land natural resource management, Eastern and Southern Africa); the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) (land professionals), and the GIZ-funded Network of Excellence on Land Governance in Africa (NELGA) programme (climate change, land rights, African development).

Sait teaches at LSE on Sustainable Development (GY121) and Global Environmental Governance (GY327), and previously taught at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Sait’s interests lie in rethinking contemporary development theory and practice, research methods, pedagogy, particularly in relation to critical resource geography and resource-led development.

Provisional thesis title
Epistemic Decolonisation, African Minerals, and Critical Resource Geography: Implications for African Development Theory and Practice

Research Interests

• Economic Geography and African city-regions
• Local Economic Development
• Land and natural resource management
• Globalisation and Development policy
• Decolonial theory and practice

Selected Publications

Iammarino, S., and Sait, M.A. (2025). “Critical raw materials, technological change, and the Sustainable Development Goals”, (pp.79-96) In Vang, J., Balslev, H., Bille, A., Brambini, A., and Masi, D., (Eds.) Handbook of Grand Challenges in Global Production and Innovation Networks, Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, UK; https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781035346516/chapter5.xml

Asian NGO Coalition, Huairou Commission, and University of East London. (2024). Transforming Land Rights and Climate Justice though a Women-led Renegotiated New Social Contract. ANGOC and HC. (as rapporteur): https://angoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/EGM_summary-report_portal.pdf

Sait, M.A., and Chigbu, E.U. (2023) Overcoming the Overcoming the ‘Dark Side of Innovation’ for Healthy Ecosystems and Equitable Development in Nambia, Ecocity World Summit, London, UK; https://www.ecocity-summit.com/media/i0qbmjhh/339-adil-sait-overcoming-the-dark-of-innovation-for-healthy-ecosystems-and-equitable-development-in-nambia.pdf

Iammarino, S., Savona, M., Marinelli, E., Sait, M.A., and Alpízar, G.A., (with Ciarli, T.) (2023) International Policy Lessons: Integrated Report, UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean; https://www.cepal.org/en/publications/67994-international-policy-lessons-integrated-report

Sait, M.A., Siukuta, M., Alexander, L., and Simataa, V., (2021) Land, Land Rights and Climate Change: A Scoping Study, Global Land Tool Network/Namibia University of Science and Technology.

Sait M.S., and Sait, M.A., (2021) The paradox of Islamic land governance and gender equality, In Chigbu, E.U., (eds) Land Governance and Gender: The Tenure-Gender Nexus in Land Management and Land Policy, CABI Publishers; https://www.cabi.org/bookshop/book/9781789247688/

Sait, M.A., (2019) Local economic development should focus on livelihoods in urbanisation, Africa@LSE; https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/11/28/livelihoods-local-economic-development-urbanisation/

Sait, M.A., (2019) NELGA Workshop Report, In El-Ayachi, M., Khalil, H.A.E., Wague, O., Ganawa, E., El Azrak, S., Saidi, S., Sait, M.S., and Zouhiri, N., (eds). NELGA North Africa: Report of the partners’ workshop on validation of scoping study on land governance, capacity needs assessment and strategic plan, Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire (IAV), Rabat, Morocco; https://arablandinitiative.gltn.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NELGA_Scoping_Study_Ex-Report.pdf

Sait, M.A., (2019) Operationalising Local Economic Development through the New Urban Agenda: the case of Monrovia, Liberia, Masters’ thesis, Department of Geography and Environment, LSE.

Chigbu E.U., Sait, M.A., Ngau, P.M., and Bwana, N.O., (eds.) (2019) Land and Natural Resource Tenure Security in Selected Countries of Eastern and Southern Africa: Synthesis Report, UN-Habitat; https://unhabitat.org/land-and-natural-resource-tenure-security-in-selected-countries-of-eastern-and-southern-africa

Sait, M.A., Chigbu, E.U., Hamiduddin, I., and de Vries, W., (2019) Renewable Energy as an Underutilised Resource in Cities: Germany’s ‘Energiewende’ and Lessons for Post-Brexit Cities in the United Kingdom, Resources, 8(1), 7, https://doi.org/10.3390/resources8010007

Prizes/awards/scholarships/funding

• LSE Firoz Lalji for Africa Best Dissertation Prize (2018/2019)
• Travel Grants and Funding received from UN-Habitat, Global Land Tool Network, World Bank, GIZ, EPSRC etc.

Affiliations/memberships

• Visting Research Fellow, Institute for Land, Livelihoods and Housing, Namibia University of Science and Technology
• SOAS-QFC Fellow, Law, Environment and Development Centre, SOAS, University of London
• Research Fellow, UEL Noon Centre, Royal Docks School of Business and Law, University of East London
• Member, Global Africa-China Working Group, LSE-Fudan Policy Hub/LSE Department of International Development
• Member, Social Epistemologies Reading Group, LSE Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method

Media

Adil Sait, an FIG young professional and doctoral researcher at the London School of Economics (LSE) represents FIG at the 12th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF12)

Mr. Adil Sait presents his work on “Mining for Critical Raw Materials in Namibia: Preliminary findings on multi-stakeholder governance and policy for local economic development”.

Adil Sait – Opinion – ‘Critical Raw Materials For African Development’, Published in the New Era Newspaper, Windhoek, Namibia, 28 September 2023

Adil Sait contributes to the High-Level Panel on Youth and the Decade of Action high-level, Discussion Topic: ‘How to create age-responsive cities in the next UN decade of action?’ (World Urban Forum 10, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

Adil Sait presents at the Annual World Association for Sustainable Development (WASD) Conference (17-19 June 2019), hosted by UNEP and WASD; Topic: How to foster sustainable and inclusive development through local and regional approaches in Africa.

Supervisors
Dr Richard Perkins
Prof Claire Mercer