- It is a privilege to be invited to make some opening remarks at the Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN) Land and Poverty Conference held at the Human Sciences Research Council. It is a great honour and at the same time a great responsibility, which I do not treat lightly.
- First I would like to commend the SARPN secretariat and their team for recognising the important relationship between land tenure, poverty and sustainable development in the Southern African region.
- This is a region in which land dispossession by colonial and apartheid regimes has, above all other factors, contributed most to the underlying poverty of the African population. Tenure insecurity remains a fundamental underlying cause of poverty in the region today. We have achieved very little so far in righting that wrong.
- People will say, of course, jobs, employment, etc. are more important to people than land or fixed property. Of course jobs are important, but in today's wage economy there is nothing very secure about employment and a wage packet. With land and a home in which one can invest one's savings and return to in times of crisis, the loss of a job is much less of a disaster. In any case, the proportion of the population that can rely on wage employment as a principal source of income is declining.
- When jobs are not forthcoming people have nothing but the land and related natural resources to fall back on. The ability to sustain a living on that land will hinge on the strength of one's land rights:
- The right to occupy a homestead, to use land for crops and for grazing, to make improvements and so on
- The right to transact that land: to give, to mortgage, to bequeath, to rent areas of exclusive use
- The right to exclude others
- The right to enforce legal and administrative provisions in order to protect the rights of the holder
- Tenure security is both a basic human right and essential if people are to be allowed to manage their land resources, invest in the land and use it sustainably. Tenure security is a public good, like access to health care, education and so on.
- But how often does the importance of tenure security find expression in public statements of politicians and in government policy? This lack of attention is not just a case of budgetary priorities. The cost of putting in place the necessary laws, systems and procedures does not amount to very much.
- Above all, I suspect, the lack of action is a result of low public awareness of the importance of tenure security to poverty reduction and sustainable development. This is why the SARPN is to be commended on arranging today's meeting.
- I am well aware that the central agrarian issue in Southern Africa is the repossession of land alienated by white settlers. That is understandable and justifiable given the history of the region. But other aspects of land reform are also important.
- The fact is that the great majority of people in the region do not have tenure security. They have no right independent of the will of the state to use and occupy their land. Very little, if any, progress has been made across the region with tenure reform to the advantage of farm workers, labour tenants on freehold land, and those who use and occupy land in the so-called "communal areas" (especially on peri-urban communal land).
- Looking around the region, very little progress has been made. Indeed, people's livelihoods, especially those of the poor, probably are more insecure than they were a decade ago. This lack of attention to tenure security is not just a case of formulating basic laws but also putting in place the administrative arrangements so that rights have some meaning in practice.
- One has to ask why has so little progress been made? I have made a few suggestions why this is the case in my paper.
- It is in the nature of things that land tenure systems, traditional or modern, will be manipulated by the powerful in their own interests and will disregard the well being of the rural poor. Politicians may tolerate bottom-up participatory processes in other areas, but not in matters that require them to relinquish control over land allocation. (We should not take refuge in blaming politicians, though - we deserve the politicians we get!)
- A well-trained civil service could counterbalance the politicians, but inadequate administrative capacity is a recurring problem in land reform. A numerous and widely deployed army of well-trained staff with the necessary administrative and legal support is essential. For a number of reasons the capacity of the public service in Southern African countries does not seem to be improving.
- If land reform measures are to be successfully implemented and contribute to the livelihoods of rural people, the pace of reform cannot run ahead of advances in other related government functions, especially those for providing infrastructure (water, power and communications) and technical support services to small farmers - credit, input supply, marketing, extension and adaptive research. In short, unless it is accompanied by other expensive undertakings, land reform is unlikely to make much difference to the poor.
- If political, administrative and cost considerations all militate against success, why try? The answer to this question must be the same in 2001 as it was in 1980 in Zimbabwe, 1990 in Namibia and 1994 in South Africa. Although not in itself a guarantee of economic development, land reform is a necessary condition for a more secure and balanced society and to avert the type of insurgency witnessed in Zimbabwe, currently the world's fastest shrinking economy.
- Despite the Zimbabwe land crisis, which came to a head in March 2000, there is very little evidence yet of progress in land reform in the region. There is an unbridgeable gap between the public statements of politicians about land reform and the capacity of governments to deliver.
- International donors want to help with funding but the ability of the public sector to manage and use those funds constructively and responsibly is declining. At the same time, civil society organisations, which have been working with governments on land reform over the last decade, are losing staff for lack of funding. This applies to university departments, private service providers and NGOs. The capacity to respond to the deepening land crisis in Southern Africa is diminishing.
- Against this volatile and unpredictable background in the region, NGOs in the land and rural sector have been struggling to obtain donor assistance for core functions of land reform advocacy, capacity building and project implementation. The reluctance of donors to support the NGOs reflects the difficulties faced by donors in obtaining agreement on bilateral programmes that incorporate support to organisations that may be critical of government policies. This timidity on the part of donors is part of a much larger problem of donor-government-NGO relations.
- Unlike other sectors (e.g. education, health, water supply), assistance to land reform presents problems arising from its volatile, cyclical and politically sensitive nature. Assistance is likely to be always needed, but the nature and intensity of support vary from time to time and are difficult to predict. Donors cannot walk away when things turn sour. They must lie low, tread carefully and maintain a basic flow of support.
- Land reform is a long-term iterative process, needing the feedback, learning and involvement of many stakeholders. It is also a highly contested one, particularly in the unequal societies of the region. As everybody now knows, unequal ownership of the land is an increasing threat to political stability in the region.
- A good understanding of the emerging situation in the countries of the region is important if donors are to respond promptly to requests for assistance. Civil society organisations are a major source of knowledge. Strengthening civil society during periods of government inaction is of value for what follows. The history of land reform supports the theory that civil society can be vitally important in giving a kick-start to a new government initiative - just as it was in South Africa in 1994.
Martin Adams, 4 June 2001
Martin Adams, an ODI research associate, worked as a soil surveyor and plant ecologist in Sudan and the South Pacific in the 1960s, after which he became involved in the economic, institutional and land tenure aspects of agriculture in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and East Africa. Since 1990, he has concentrated on land reform in Southern Africa and the Philippines. For the last six years he has been policy advisor in the South African Department of Land Affairs.
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