A synthesis of land issues and land policy constraints in Southern Africa prepared for and revised since the World Bank Regional Workshop on Land Issues in Africa in Kampala, 29 April – 2 May 2002. Synthesises key points made in commissioned papers, plenary comments, and facilitated discussions from a Southern Africa working group. Topics include an overview of land issues and special problems and constraints affecting Southern Africa including land administration, community ownership, financial capital and investment, HIV/AIDS, land markets, conflict, and redistribution.

Report on a Southern African consultation of donors and civil society organisations held in Benoni on 3 May 2001. Its purpose was to review progress with land reform and what donors might do in its absence. Traces current developments in the region. Argues that donors should not walk away when things turn sour, that land reform is a long-term iterative process, needing the involvement of many stakeholders. Unequal ownership of land is an increasing threat to political stability. Strengthening civil society during periods of government inaction is of value for what follows.

It is often assumed that transferring land to rural households will provide people with valuable assets that can be productively used to enhance their livelihoods. Unfortunately, few rural people or land reform beneficiaries are perceived to be using land productively because they do not engage in significant commercial production for the market. Transferring land to subsistence users is therefore seen as a waste of resources.

Begins with a brief overview of South Africa’s redistribution programme. Offers an interpretation of ‘what went wrong’ with the land redistribution programme that prevailed between 1995 and 1999, followed by a scan of the problems that do or will limit the revised redistribution programme in respect of its rural development objective. Concludes tentatively with remarks about the burden of redistribution in redressing past injustices, and explains how the revised redistribution programme is especially ill suited to this purpose.

Mentions new food security programme, transfer of state land, land tenure, land reform grant, new approach, commonage, agricultural redistribution grants, integrated rural development planning. Will facilitate transfer of tribal land to tribes and communities. Extended deadline for labour tenant claims to March 2001. Previous overemphasis on market forces failed to produce desired effect and impact. Lifted last August’s moratorium on new land reform projects. Piloting a supply led system.

Statement of principles adopted at NLC policy summit in June 2000 on the above subjects plus cross cutting issues.

Reports from meeting near Bilbao from peasants in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Niger, Mali, Senegal and Ghana. Almost everywhere in Africa the elite and corporations are undertaking efforts to capture and control people’s basic means of production, such as land, mineral resources, seeds and water. These resources are increasingly being privatized due to the myriad of investment agreements and policies driven by new institutional approaches, imposed on the continent by western powers and Bretton Woods institutions.

A guide to a report from the World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department which is likely to prove extremely helpful to practitioners. The structure of the report is first given in detail to illustrate its coverage. This is followed by a section which gathers together some of its contents and conclusions, interspersed with comments.

A review of Zimbabwe in 2001, focusing on the land question and farm workers. Reflections on conferences on Zimbabwe in Copenhagen and on farm workers in Southern Africa in Harare, with a section highlighting the key issues brought out in a new book on farm workers in Zimbabwe. Argues that issues around farm workers need to be seriously rethought and debated across the political spectrum and that land is a part of a much wider crisis of governance.

Report on a conference held in the Philippines in December 2000.

A short paper outlining the likely future impact of HIV/AIDS on land.

Contains mix-and-match ministries, separating Land Reform from Agriculture, dualism and the ‘missing middle’, rethinking rural development, what are the policy alternatives?