Trajectory of Land Reform in Post-Colonial African States

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Post Colonial

‘This is Our land’

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.S. Mlambo
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Fast Track ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Decisive Factor ◽  
Land Acquisition ◽  
White Race ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Reform Programme ◽  
Land Question

This study seeks to trace the role of race in the evolution of the land question in Zimbabwe from Occupation to the ‘fast-track land reform programme’ of 2000 and beyond to explore the extent to which the era of colonial domination made the racialization of the land issue in the post-colonial period almost unavoidable. It contends that Mugabe’s use of race to justify the campaign to drive whites from the land from 2000 onwards was facilitated (in part) by the fact that race had always been used by the colonial authorities as a decisive factor in land acquisition and allocation throughout the colonial period and that using the alleged superiority of the white race, colonial authorities alienated African land for themselves without either negotiating with the indigenous authorities or paying for the land. Consequently, Mugabe’s charge that the land had been stolen and needed to be retaken clearly resonated with some segments of the Zimbabwean population enough to get them to actively participate in the land invasions of the time.

scholarly journals How to understand, evaluate and influence efficient progress in South Africa’s land reform process: A typology from historical lessons from selected sub-Saharan African countries

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nhlanhla C. Mbatha
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Policy Uncertainty ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Black Farmers ◽  
Sub Saharan

Background: With reports of widespread failures in South Africa’s land reform programmes, the levels of policy uncertainty in the political rhetoric that influences land reform have been increasing. Since 1994 policy targets to transfer land to black farmers have not been met. Of the 2005 target to transfer about 25 million ha of commercial farmland to black farmers by 2014, less than 5 million ha. have been transferred for commercial use. Some studies report failure rates in resettlement projects of up to 90%. To account for the failures, revisions of policies and amendments to legislations have been proposed within a political environment that is becoming increasingly intolerant to slow progress in land transfers and to resettlement failures.Aim: Against this environment, this paper presents a typology for understanding and evaluating important elements of the land reform project in order to influence progress in the process.Setting: The study adopts a historical review of land reform processes in post-colonial Kenya and Zimbabwe in order to identify potential challenges and key lessons for South Africa.Methods: Hence, using institutional and historical analytical lenses in exploring different narratives, the paper reviews reported failures and successes in land reform policy cases from the selected countries. From an institutional framework, prevalent social institutions and key lessons from Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa, a typology for evaluating important elements of the land reform process in South Africa is developed and discussed. Additionally, a review of global data collected on average sizes of farms in different regions of the world is provided as evidence to support propositions of what would constitute efficient farmland size ranges for small to medium commercial farms in South Africa.Results and conclusion: A proposition is made on how to use the typology to guide policy and research interventions to reduce failures and promote successful cases in different areas of the land reform process in South Africa, and possibly other similar contexts.

Beyond Land Redistribution: A Case for Stewardship in Land Reform

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-96
Author(s):  
Menard Musendekwa ◽  
Munyaradzi Tinarwo ◽  
Rumbidzayi Chakauya ◽  
Ereck Chakauya
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
Current Article ◽  
The Right ◽  
Land Question

The right to own and derive value out of the land, (cf. ownership) is a human right enshrined in the constitution of most democratic countries. Land reform is arguably the most emotional, socio-economic, and political subject of the colonial and post-colonial era of the African continent. It is a subject that has remained sacred and a taboo creating a fertile ground for protracted political, social, economic, and religious conflicts. Many African indigenous communities are genuinely struggling to address inequality and deprivation. Despite the overwhelming economic demand to address the land question, only a handful of African countries have been bold enough to tackle the issue head-on, sometimes with dire consequences. In the current article, we use the Zimbabwe land reform programme as a case and through a biblical lens show cause for land not just as a commodity where belonging is the ultimate deciding factor but rather emphasise ownership by stewardship. This perspective is compatible with modern systems of governance, ubuntu in the African traditional culture, and encourage efficiency of production to achieve food security despite the polarised discourse of land reform in most countries.

Funding Rural Development in Post-Apartheid South Africa's Land Reform Programme

2020 ◽  
pp. 118-139
Author(s):  
Mukovhe Maureen Nthai
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Rural Development ◽  
South African ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Development Strategies ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan

The development of Africa is not only a problem to the Africans alone but also to the world at large. This is because some regions of the world also depend on Africa for their livelihoods. In Sub Saharan Africa one of the rural development strategies identified is land reform. Post-colonial African governments have argued that land reform would alleviate the majority of the people in the region from poverty, create employment, and address inequality. This is the position adopted by the post-apartheid government in South Africa beyond 27 April 1994. However, the South African post-apartheid land reform has had some significant complexities in its implementation – especially with regard to funding. Funding was impeded by widespread corruption in government. In addition, there has been immense lack of interest in making funds available for land reform in South Africa from non-governmental entities and donors.

Devolution and the politics of communal tenure reform in Kenya

2020 ◽  
Vol 119 (476) ◽  
pp. 338-369
Author(s):  
Gargule A Achiba ◽  
Monica N Lengoiboni
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Communal Tenure ◽  
Governance Institutions

Abstract Increased legal access and the devolution of natural resource administration are generally seen as sources of power for local communities and their institutions. However, beyond this widely held expectation, the politics of land reform suggest that legal recognition of rights and devolution is not the only issue with implications for communal tenure reforms. Misconceptions about communal tenure, which are rooted in history, and their appropriation by local elites in the processes of communal tenure reform are characteristic of both colonial and post-colonial governments in Kenya. Although typically articulated and promulgated to enhance political representation and to devolve control over resources to the local level, unresolved issues in the reform process have worked to undermine the legitimacy of communal land rights in contemporary Kenyan society. A case study of the post-2010 community land legislation process demonstrates the continuing relevance of historically conditioned political and ideological representations of communal tenure built during the colonial period and reproduced in policy in independent Kenya. This paper offers reflections on the centrality of sustained communal tenure misconceptions, fetishization of formal governance institutions, and the institutional and power configurations that primarily benefit powerful stakeholders as sources of the current breakdown in the implementation of community land law.

Understanding Land Reform in Ghana

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franklin Obeng-Odoom
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Development Discourse ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Political Economic

Land reform has become particularly prominent in development discourse in recent times. Advocates emphasize its importance for poverty reduction in underdeveloped economies. However, how reform comes about and evolves and what it is and does is situated, not universal, as neoclassical economists suggest. This paper sheds light on the meaning, evolution, and outcomes of land reform in Ghana. It draws on historical and contemporary socio-legal and political-economic sources of evidence, analyzed within a critical postcolonial institutional framework. It shows important features of continuity and change in both colonial and post-colonial land reform. While pre-colonial land tenure relations are misrepresented as entailing no market activities, the concerted effort to introduce “capitalist markets” into the land sector to produce “socially efficient outcomes” has led to contradictory results.

scholarly journals The Politics of Land Law: Poverty and Land Legislation in Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
S M Masum Billah
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Land Law ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Land Distribution ◽  
Land System ◽  
Land Tenure System ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Reform Model

<p>This thesis examines the major colonial and post-colonial land laws of Bangladesh and their relationship with poverty. It interprets them in the light of historical developments and social realities. The thesis argues that land laws in Bangladesh are essentially anti-poor. They contribute to the perpetuation of poverty.  At present, two-thirds of the poor in Bangladesh are land-related poor. The land system that prevailed in colonial Bengal during the British period deprived the peasants of their land rights. This situation demanded a radical land reform based on a distributive approach upon decolonisation in 1947. Unfortunately, in the post-colonial political and legal settings of Bangladesh, land distribution has been unequal. Such inequality coupled with a weak land tenure system and fragile institutional reform created widespread poverty.  The Bangladeshi land laws are complex and vague and dominated by politics. Its land law regime has structural loopholes and ideological drawbacks, which are enough to make reform attempts dysfunctional.  Poverty in Bangladesh is a result of cumulative and mutually reinforcing deprivations. Land law is a major participant in it. Poverty will persist unless law addresses the true reasons of the poverty and a pro-poor approach to land reform is pursued.  The gap between “law” and “land” is exposed and a distributive land law reform model is proposed.</p>

scholarly journals Autocracy, Institutional Constraints and Land Expropriation: A Conceptual Analysis of Land Redistribution in Zimbabwe

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 327
Author(s):  
DUBE MAKUWERERE Langton
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Land Expropriation ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Land Redistribution ◽  
Political Purpose

Using the Zimbabwean case, this article explores the assertion that autocracies are better placed than democracies in land redistribution because of lower institutional constraints and concentration of power which makes policy implementation easier. This is rightly so, because such political systems have the notoriety of neutralizing or eliminating the veto gauntlet which is normally strengthened by institutional autonomy.  Extant literature on land reform continues to grapple with overarching questions as to why countries redistribute land, relating to the type of conditions that incubate the need for reform and the political purpose that redistribution serve in this world. Equally important, is the need to interrogate the real beneficiaries of land reform. The study notes that in the post-Cold War globalized era of ‘fractured sovereignty’, redistribution from above remains attractive despite its protracted nature. However, against a post-colonial settler land discourse that memorializes race, privilege, dispossession, and restitution, the article evinces that land redistribution is tainted by elitism, clientelism, and partisanship which eventually distort its structural transformative power.

scholarly journals The Politics of Land Law: Poverty and Land Legislation in Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
S M Masum Billah
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Land Law ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Land Distribution ◽  
Land System ◽  
Land Tenure System ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Reform Model

<p>This thesis examines the major colonial and post-colonial land laws of Bangladesh and their relationship with poverty. It interprets them in the light of historical developments and social realities. The thesis argues that land laws in Bangladesh are essentially anti-poor. They contribute to the perpetuation of poverty.  At present, two-thirds of the poor in Bangladesh are land-related poor. The land system that prevailed in colonial Bengal during the British period deprived the peasants of their land rights. This situation demanded a radical land reform based on a distributive approach upon decolonisation in 1947. Unfortunately, in the post-colonial political and legal settings of Bangladesh, land distribution has been unequal. Such inequality coupled with a weak land tenure system and fragile institutional reform created widespread poverty.  The Bangladeshi land laws are complex and vague and dominated by politics. Its land law regime has structural loopholes and ideological drawbacks, which are enough to make reform attempts dysfunctional.  Poverty in Bangladesh is a result of cumulative and mutually reinforcing deprivations. Land law is a major participant in it. Poverty will persist unless law addresses the true reasons of the poverty and a pro-poor approach to land reform is pursued.  The gap between “law” and “land” is exposed and a distributive land law reform model is proposed.</p>

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