Zambia’s agriculture sector provides the main support for the rural economy. This assertion is based on the fact that about forty nine percent of the Zambian population depends on agriculture, primarily through smallholder production for their livelihoods and employment (CSO, 2014). Notwithstanding this fact, in 2015 the sector contributed 8.5 percent to the GDP and approximately 9.6 percent of national export earnings (CSO, 2015; World Bank, 2016). The potential for agricultural growth in Zambia is staggering.

Zambia has experienced strong economic performance since 1999. However, agriculture has not performed as well as the rest of the economy, and although the incidence of poverty has declined, it still

remains high. The Zambian government, within the framework of the Fifth National Development Plan

Professor Ben Cousins from the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape provides a critical review of the land reform programme in South Africa 1994 - 2016. This presentation made as part of a 4.5 day course on the Political economy of land, mining and rural democracy 22 - 26 Feb 2016 for activists associated with the Alliance for Rural Democracy.

Chiefly an agricultural society, India has a strong linkage between land and social status of an individual. Nearly 70 % of its population dependent on land, either as farmers or farm laborers and it is imperative to address the issues of land ensuring livelihood, dignity and food security to millions of Indians. Land reform was a major policy initiative in the country in 1950s and early 1960s.

This research report examines the changing role and function of civil society in South Africa pre and post-1994, and its changing relations with the state through successive presidencies. It presents a four quadrant typology of civil society organisations

An Act to provide for the abolition of all the rights, title and interest in land of intermediaries by whatever name known, including the mortgagees and lessees of such interest, between the raiyat and the State of Odisha, for vesting in the said State of the said right, title and interest and to make provision for other matter connected therewith.

A presentation covering a range of land reform and small holder development and rural development initiatives in South Africa

This think piece sets out to:

This article examines the evolution of policy recommendations concerning rural land issues since the formulation of the World Bank’s “Land Reform Policy Paper” in 1975. That paper set out three guiding principles: the desirability of owner-operated family farms; the need for markets to permit land to be transferred to more productive users; and the importance of an egalitarian asset distribution.

A key challenge facing South Africa’s economic development is overcoming the structural poverty created through the systematic dispossession of the majority of its citizens. Although radically marginalized during apartheid, there is poor public acknowledgement of the losses experienced by those families who, through the passing of various racially biased, land and labour laws, became farm labour on commercial farms.

For a number of years, community structures and civil society organisations have expressed concerns with the failings of the government’s land reform programme. There have been growing calls for a review of the land reform programme framework to address issues which impact on the tenure security and livelihoods strategies of rural communities in South Africa. 

The key focus of this document is the settlement of the Ebenhaeser restitution claim in the Western Cape. This is guided by the Settlement Framework Agreement which was signed by the Community, the then Department of Land Affairs and the Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights in March 2005. 

The CDLAP has three main components: