Land reform in South Africa is the promise of "land restitution" to empower farm workers (who now have the opportunity to become farmers) and reduce inequality. This also refers to aspects such as, property, possibly white owned businesses.
Proponents argue it will allow previously unemployed people to participate in the economy and better the country's economic growth.
It also relates to restitution in the form of settling Land Claims of people who were forcefully removed from their homes in urban areas that were declared white, by the
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
government's segregationist
Group Areas Act
Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system o ...
: such areas include
Sophiatown
Sophiatown , also known as Sof'town or Kofifi, is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Sophiatown was a black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid, It produced some of South Africa's most famous writers, musicians, politicians a ...
,
Fietas,
Cato Manor,
District Six
District Six (Afrikaans ''Distrik Ses'') is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime.
The area of District Six is now ...
and
Greyville; as well as restitution for people forcibly evicted from rural land because of apartheid policies.
However, many South Africans and foreign commentators have also voiced alarm over the failure of the redistribution policy, having failed around 50% of land reform projects.
Details
The Land Reform Process focused on three areas: restitution, land tenure reform and land redistribution.
Restitution, the government compensating (monetary) individuals who had been forcefully removed, has been very unsuccessful, and the policy has now shifted to redistribution with secure land tenure. Land tenure reform is a system of recognizing people's right to own land and therefore control of the land.
Redistribution is the most important component of land reform in South Africa.
Initially, land was bought from its owners (willing seller) by the government (willing buyer) and redistributed, in order to maintain public confidence in the land market.
In 2000, the South African government decided to review and change the redistribution and tenure process to a more decentralised and area based planning process. The idea is to have local integrated development plans in 47 districts. That will hopefully mean more community participation and more redistribution taking place, but there are also various concerns and challenges with this system too.
They include the use of third parties, agents accredited by the state, and who are held accountable to the government. The result has been local land holding elites dominating the system in many of these areas. The government still hopes that with "improved identification and selection of beneficiaries, better planning of land and ultimately greater productivity of the land acquired..."
the land reform process will begin moving faster.
As of early 2006, the
ANC
The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...
government announced that it will start
expropriating the land, but according to the country's chief land claims commissioner, Tozi Gwanya, unlike in Zimbabwe, there will be compensation to those whose land is expropriated, "but it must be a just amount, not inflated sums."
In South Africa, the main model of land reforms implemented was based on the market-led agrarian reform (MLAR) approach. Within the MLAR, the strategic partnership (SP) model was implemented in seven claimant communities in Levubu in the Limpopo province. The SP model was implemented between 2005–2008 that ended up in a fiasco leading to creation of conflict between several interested parties.
On 1 September 2010, the National Rural Youth Service Corps (NARYSEC) was launched by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform to provide and recruit rural youth specifically dependents of military veterans between the ages of 18 and 25 with skills development and to serve their communities by providing a 24-month training program at South African military bases.
On 20 December 2017, the ANC-led government announced at the 54th National Conference that it will seek to amend Section 25 of the South African Constitution regarding property rights to implement land expropriation without compensation (EWC). At the conference, a resolution was passed to grant ownership of traditional land to the respective communities, about 13% of the country, usually registered in trust like the
Ingonyama Trust under the name of traditional leaders to the respective communities.
In February 2018, the
Parliament of South Africa passed a motion to review the property ownership clause of the constitution, to allow for the expropriation of land, in the public interest, without compensation, which was widely supported within South Africa's ruling party on the grounds that the land was originally seized by whites without just compensation. South African officials claim that the land reforms will be different from
Zimbabwe's land reforms in that South Africa's plan is "constitutional" and "subject to laws and the constitution," unlike Zimbabwe's process, which was overseen by
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the ...
. However, the process in Zimbabwe was also carried out by a constitutional amendment, signed into law on 12 September 2005, that nationalised farmland acquired through the "Fast Track" process and deprived original landowners of the right to challenge in court the government's decision to expropriate their land.
In August 2018, the South African government began the process of taking two white-owned farmlands by filing papers seeking to acquire the farms via
eminent domain
Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
for one tenth of their estimated value, which, in one case, is based on possible value when the farm is developed into an eco-estate. According to a 2017 government audit, 72 percent of the nation's private farmland is owned by white people, who make up 9 percent of the population.
Future challenges
Various researchers have identified various challenges facing land and agrarian reform in South Africa. The following are amongst the challenges as identified by and the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (2008):
* Willing seller-willing buyer principle: it takes a long time to negotiate land price with the current land owners;
* Claim disputes: it is a long process to mediate and resolve claim disputes (e.g. unresolved disputes between Makgoba Traditional Council and the Trust in the Limpopo Province, South Africa);
* Capacity: there is lack of institutional capacity for community legal entities (e.g. trust);
* Beneficiary selection: it is a lengthy process and time-consuming process to select the rightful beneficiaries for land redistribution;
* Resettlement support: it requires enough resources and time to effectively facilitate post-resettlement support to new land owners;
* Monitoring and evaluation: there is lack of reliable monitoring system and evaluation thereof;
* Policy: there are gaps in the current policies which compromise effective implementation of land reform programme.
* Different political views: there is lack of common consensus among political parties on land reform debate.
Unresolved
land claim
A land claim is defined as "the pursuit of recognized territorial ownership by a group or individual". The phrase is usually only used with respect to disputed or unresolved land claims. Some types of land claims include aboriginal land claims, A ...
s, which are largely rural claims, are mostly affected by a number of challenges such as:
* disputes with land owners on the validity of claims, land prices, settlement models and conditions;
* family or community dispute;
* conflict among traditional leaders, community, trust and beneficiaries
* boundaries disputes among traditional leaders;
* reluctance of other government departments and institutions to release state land;
* high land prices and disputes on land valuation;
* land price negotiations with current owners;
* lack of technical and financial support;
* mismanagement of resources;
* untraceable claimants; and
* land claim disputes resolution and mediation.
Financial and Fiscal Commission's 2016 report
As of 2016, the South African government has pumped more than R60 billion into land reform projects since 1994. Despite this investment, the land reform program has not stimulated development in the targeted rural areas. A report by the South African Government's Financial and Fiscal Commission shows that land reform as a mechanism for agricultural development and job creation has failed. A survey by the commission in
Limpopo province
Limpopo is the northernmost province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The capital and largest city in the province is Polokwane, while the provincial legislature is ...
,
KwaZulu-Natal and the
Eastern Cape found that most land reform farms show little or no agricultural activity, the land reform beneficiaries earn little to no income and most of those beneficiaries seek work on surrounding commercial farms instead of actively farming their own land. If farming is taking place on land reform farms, these farms operate below their full agricultural potential and are mainly used for
subsistence agriculture. On average, crop production had decreased by 79% since conversion to land reform. In the three provinces surveyed, job losses averaged 84%, with KwaZulu-Natal suffering a 94% job hemorrhage.
2019 reform
In October
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
, Parliament began discussing constitutional reforms that would permit the uncompensated seizure of private land. The ANC has laid out a commitment to land redistribution in its manifesto. The exact wording on the proposal is expected in March 2020.
South African land reform panel recommends seizures without pay in certain circumstances
Reuters Business News, 28 July 2019, retrieved 19 Feb 2020 In February 2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...
President Cyril Ramaphosa
Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (born 17 November 1952) is a South African businessman and politician who is currently serving as the fifth democratically elected president of South Africa. Formerly an anti-apartheid activist, trade union leader, and ...
said the government intends to accelerate land redistribution in 2020. Ramaphosa indicated that land redistribution was important for redressing the injustice of the 1913 Natives Land Act.
Speaking from Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, t ...
, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Michael Richard Pompeo (; born December 30, 1963) is an American politician, diplomat, and businessman who served under President Donald Trump as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2017 to 2018 and as the 70th United State ...
asserted on February 19, 2020, that land distribution without compensation would be disastrous for South Africa and its people.
See also
*Land reforms by country Agrarian reform and land reform have been a recurring theme of enormous consequence in world history. They are often highly political and have been achieved (or attempted) in many countries.
Latin America
Brazil
Getúlio Vargas, who rose to presi ...
*Agriculture in South Africa
Agriculture in South Africa contributes around 5% of formal employment, relatively low compared to other parts of Africa and the number is still decreasing, as well as providing work for casual laborers and contributing around 2.6 percent of GDP ...
External links
Rethinking the Past and Future of Land Reform, By Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, Anastasya Eliseeva, 19 November 2019
Notes
References
*
*
*
External links
''Promised Land'': New Documentary Follows Struggles Over Land in South Africa
- video report by ''Democracy Now!
''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...
''
{{Africa in topic, Land reform in
* http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/jid.3150
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
Reform in South Africa