Warning On Pace Of Land Reform
The situation in Zimbabwe has demonstrated for the southern Africa region that if land issues are handled poorly, conflict of one kind or another is almost inevitable, a report by the International Crisis Group has warned.
The ICG, an independent organisation, said that there would have to be an increase in political will to tackle land reform in South Africa. The inequality of land ownership and the historical injustices are considered the worst in Africa, with three quarters of agricultural land still in the hands of 60,000 white farmers.
The President of the ICG, Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister, said it was unlikely that South Africa would replicate the Zimbabwean land crisis but warned that 'countries across the region are burdened with chronic land problems that are frustrating attempts to promote economic development and eradicate poverty.'
The report recognised that post apartheid South Africa had undertaken substantial land reform but to reach its target of redistributing 30% of agricultural land into black hands by 2015 required a major effort on the part of government, donors and NGOs. So far only 3% of rural land had been transferred to black people since 1994 and only one half of a percent of the budget had been devoted to land reform.
"The land issue remains politically explosive, not least because levels of land dispossession over the last century and a half rival those anywhere in the world. Land expropriation was the central tool of social control and economic subjugation," the report said.
The report, entitled Blood and Soil states that in South Africa "violence on farms and in rural areas remains unacceptably high," and the ANC government is not adequately addressing what could become a political time bomb if land redistribution is not urgently tackled.
The report recommends a number of steps that should be taken to improve South Africa's land distribution programme, including the formation of partnerships, encouragement of innovation, support of land reform beneficiaries with HIV/AIDS, improvement on reform planning, and holding a southern Africa land summit.
The ICG warns South Africa "that violence fuelled by inequality and unfulfilled expectations could become a much larger factor in its future, as the emotive issue of land becomes linked to dissatisfaction over the country's basic ills: unemployment and poverty." This, the ICG claims will become a major issue in the 2009 elections.
The full ICG report can be read at the International Crisis Group's website.
The ICG, an independent organisation, said that there would have to be an increase in political will to tackle land reform in South Africa. The inequality of land ownership and the historical injustices are considered the worst in Africa, with three quarters of agricultural land still in the hands of 60,000 white farmers.
The President of the ICG, Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister, said it was unlikely that South Africa would replicate the Zimbabwean land crisis but warned that 'countries across the region are burdened with chronic land problems that are frustrating attempts to promote economic development and eradicate poverty.'
The report recognised that post apartheid South Africa had undertaken substantial land reform but to reach its target of redistributing 30% of agricultural land into black hands by 2015 required a major effort on the part of government, donors and NGOs. So far only 3% of rural land had been transferred to black people since 1994 and only one half of a percent of the budget had been devoted to land reform.
"The land issue remains politically explosive, not least because levels of land dispossession over the last century and a half rival those anywhere in the world. Land expropriation was the central tool of social control and economic subjugation," the report said.
The report, entitled Blood and Soil states that in South Africa "violence on farms and in rural areas remains unacceptably high," and the ANC government is not adequately addressing what could become a political time bomb if land redistribution is not urgently tackled.
The report recommends a number of steps that should be taken to improve South Africa's land distribution programme, including the formation of partnerships, encouragement of innovation, support of land reform beneficiaries with HIV/AIDS, improvement on reform planning, and holding a southern Africa land summit.
The ICG warns South Africa "that violence fuelled by inequality and unfulfilled expectations could become a much larger factor in its future, as the emotive issue of land becomes linked to dissatisfaction over the country's basic ills: unemployment and poverty." This, the ICG claims will become a major issue in the 2009 elections.
The full ICG report can be read at the International Crisis Group's website.
Labels: land claims, land reform, restitution, zimbabwe
posted by Kruger2Canyons.com at
Sunday, September 26, 2004
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