South Africa: Land reform in South Africa - A 21st century perspective

A recent report by the Centre for Development and Enterprise(CDE) claims that South Africans do not want to farm land but want housing, jobs and services delivered to them in the urban areas in which they currently reside in.

The report is the result of a three year intensive study analysing the first decade of democratic land reform. Executive director at CDE, Ann Berstein, says that with over 60% of black South Africans in urban areas, a new land re-form strategy is needed. The report found that since 1994 the government has pursued a 'willing buyer willing seller' land reform programme based and informed on a predominantly rural society.

The government has committed to redistributing over 30% of agricultural land to black land owners by 2014 and is struggling to meet these objectives, says CDE. With a total lack of provincial capacity to implement and a total budget allocation of less than 1 % in relation to these targets there has been very little progress. The report also found that the private sector had made some contribution to land reform, but more was needed. Recent involvement of agribusiness and co-operatives in land agricultural reform has seen more meaningful results in this process.

The study by the Centre for Development and Enterprise has identified the following three key 'priority areas' for land reform in South Africa:

- for the restitution process to be concluded as effectively and speedily as possible, encouraging other forms of compensation than farmland,
- speeding up land release for urban settlement, the delivery of low-income urban and peri- urban housing, and,
- deracialising the ownership of commercial agricultural land as well as 'normalising' the rural areas.

Based on its findings, the report has challenged leaders in the private sector to get more involved in the critical land reform process. The study has emphasised that South Africa has the means to tackle the complexities of land and its reform, however, partnerships are just as important.

In the long run the success of land reform in South Africa will benefit all South Africans as well as the region.

* This is a summary of the report titled 'Land reform in South Africa: A 21 century perspective'. Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE). The full study can be obtained from http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC18679&Resource... [2]

* Posted by Mandlakazi Moetsoledi, Fahamu intern