The fast-track land reform programme in Zimbabwe: implications for land restitution

Abstract

This study explores implications of the failure to accommodate formal land restitution in the Zimbabwean Fast-Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP), resulting in neglect of local communities’ autochthonous connections to land especially where their interests clash with those of political elites. It makes the point that this opened land reform to abuse by political elites and marginalized competing local community interests in prime land and valuable agricultural properties. In the absence of a formal policy for restitution, elites mobilized political and state power to enforce their commercial interests over those of neighbouring communities. Drawing from international experiences, the study argues that a formal policy of land restitution would enable local communities, including ethnic minorities, to legally reclaim lost ancestral land and limit elite capture of valuable agricultural properties.

Rethinking Land Reform and Its Contribution to Livelihoods in South Africa

“…In countries such as New Zealand and Colombia, agrarian reform took the form of land restitution aimed at restoring land rights to groups historically affected by injustices (Bourassa and Strong, 2002;Lid and García-Godos, 2010). While Brazil, Zimbabwe and Namibia focused more on the redistribution of land to the landless (Chimhowu, 2006;Fernandes, 2009;Moyo, 2011), South Africa incorporated land restitution alongside redistribution and tenure reform (Lahiff et al, 2012;Rusenga and Ncube, 2021).…”