Professor Richard Calland

Richard Calland has almost 40 years of experience in law, politics and sustainability. As a member of the London Bar, he practised law for seven years before coming to South Africa in 1994. He is Emeritus Associate Professor in Public Law at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Visiting Adjunct Professor at the Wits School of Governance.

Richard is Director of the Africa Programme at CISL, where he works with senior decision-makers across Africa and globally to accelerate economic transformation, unlock productive investment and build leadership capacity for the transition to a more sustainable economy. He also leads CISL's Board Leadership Programme, designing and facilitating bespoke engagements with boards and executive teams of major international companies. He has served as a faculty member on numerous CISL leadership programmes for organisations such as the World Bank, African Development Bank, PwC, Network Rail, Namdeb, Tata, Anglo American PLC and Nedbank.

He was the co-chair, with Amar Bhattacharya of the Brookings Institute, of a technical task team of experts appointed by the UN Secretary-General to prepare a report on the state of international climate finance ahead of his climate summit in September 2019 and was re-appointed to provide an updated post-COVID report in late 2020. In 2022, he became a member of the High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, chaired by Lord Nicholas Stern and Vera Songwe, which reported to COP27 in Egypt.

One of his passions is the intersection of education and sustainability, to which end he is the co-founder of the Sustainability Education (sused.org) initiative, which is working with schools and other partners around the world to create opportunities for critical reflection by school leaders on questions of what, where and how they teach. A programme director at Idasa from 1995–2011 — sixteen years, as head of its Parliamentary Monitoring and Information Service — Prof Calland has founded a number of organisations including the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC), the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG), the Open Democracy Advice Centre and the Democratic Governance & Rights Unit at UCT.

In the realm of political economy and political risk, he is a Founding Partner of The Paternoster Group: African Political Insight, whose past and present clients include Citadel, RCL Foods, Nando's, VWSA, CitiBank, Merrill Lynch Bank of America, Discovery Health, MTN, Anglo American PLC as well as the French Development Agency and the Embassies/High Commissions of Norway, The Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand in South Africa.

In February 2019, Prof Calland was appointed by the South African Minister for International Relations to chair an eight-person Ministerial Task Team to make recommendations on the design and establishment of a new diplomatic academy, a process that was completed on schedule in August 2019. In 2020, he was asked by the Minister of Trade & Industry in South Africa to be part of an informal advisory team to help him develop a coherent vision for the post-COVID economy.

A prominent political analyst, Richard was a columnist for the Mail & Guardian from 2001 to 2025, and has been a weekly columnist for Business Day since June 2026, providing analysis on politics, governance, leadership and the economy. He has written hundreds of newspaper columns and essays over his career. His latest book, The Presidents: From Mandela to Ramaphosa, Leadership in The Age of Crisis, was published in late 2022. Earlier books include Anatomy of South Africa: Who holds the power? (2006), The Zuma Years (2012) and Make or Break: How the next three years will shape South Africa's next three decades (2016). His debut play, The Brothers, Number One and a Weekend Special, examining themes of political corruption and misinformation, was performed at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg in April 2024.