Zimbabwe's land reform did not include building housing in urban areas. At independence most African states with settler white farmers inherited a skewed land distribution in favour of the white commercial farmers. Images of chaos, destruction and violence have dominated the coverage. 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It did not upscale them, give them access to finance, help them to adopt new production methods and diversify their products, or secure markets for them. Zimbabwe continues to face extreme food shortages which have only been exacerbated by drought. This is the policy that needs Zimbabwean and international support post-Mugabe to address the country’s rural hunger, and perhaps employment, challenges. The state institutions, whether state development finance institutions or agricultural marketing boards, that were supposed to provide new finance or skills transfer to black farmers were all at near collapse, because incompetent Zanu-PF cronies were appointed to run them. As such the government was loath to embark on large-scale subsidy and asset nationalisation schemes to develop small-scale commercial agriculture. © Copyright 2021, Zimbabwe Today is not responsible for the content of external sites. William Gumede is Associate Professor in the Wits School of Governance. As importantly, in the rural areas, land controlled by traditional leaders through customary law remained untouched. It undoubtedly remains challenging to integrate local populations meaningfully into the agricultural sector as producers of food and cash crops. For another, redistribution strategies are by their very nature highly prone to corruption, rent-seeking and manipulation – this is often one of the main reasons why redistribution strategies in almost all African and developing countries fail. Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe: Disparity Between Policy Design and Implementation Medicine Masiiwa Institute of Development Studies University of Zimbabwe May 2004 Note: An adapted version of this paper appears in the edited collection Post Independence Land Reform in Zimbabwe, published in May 2004 by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Harare. If lessons could be learned other African countries should not go t hrough the Zimbabw ean land reform process, as evidence of the successes are outw eighed by the failures of the haphazard violent land grabs. When Mugabe came to power in 1980, his government inherited an agricultural sector that was dependent on subsidies and government support. This means that the vast majority of rural dwellers are still living as second class citizens, with little rights of tenure, on communal controlled by traditional leaders as if they personally own the land. Zimbabwe is no exception. Around 40% of Zimbabwean households are hungry. This chapter discusses land issues in southern Africa in general, and in Zimbabwe in particular. On the other hand, this initiative had negative implications to the environment. This declaration was also a clear and very public admittance that land reform had failed. But perhaps more than any other issue in Zimbabwe, it has historically been met with inertia from government and the international community. Images of chaos, destruction and violence have dominated the coverage. Ironically, in 2015 Mugabe maintained there was "no suffering" in his country. Today, about five million of the country’s population of 14 million are estimated to be in need of food assistance. It demanded that the UK provide funding for the endeavour. The UK did not heed the call. The story is not simply one of collapse and catastrophe. Zim exports crashed from annual earnings of $600 million per year in 2000 to $100 million per year in 2009 while the land reform programme reached its peak. All of this means that land reform will have to be done honestly, pragmatically and to expand, rather than destroy, the industrial base of a country. Although some of the land was transferred to poor blacks who had basic farming skills, a lot of the best land was transferred to Zanu-PF politicians. The land reform focused exclusively on taking successful commercial farms. — In Zimbabwes current crisis, it is easy to overlook the fact that the country had a resettlement program for two decades before the large-scale, politically motivated land occupations … 15 … Most of the country’s 4,000 white farmers – then the backbone of the country’s agricultural economy – were forced from their land, which was handed over to about a million black Zimbabweans. This also refers to aspects such as, property, possibly white owned businesses. The white farmers are owed US$9bn in compensation for improvements made on the farms before they were expropriated. As opposition movements grew, Zanu-PF became increasingly willing to adopt programmes aimed at fast tracking land reform to landless, discontented, yet voting, populations. However, Lands and Agriculture Minister Perrance Shiri, responding recently to opposition member questions in parliament said it is not the state that will be paying the compensation, but individuals who received the expropriated farms, will be expected to do so. According to the United Nation's children's agency, UNICEF, around 3 million Zimbabweans need regularly food aid. This means that land reform can easily be used by opportunistic leaders to bolster their support among blacks – as Mugabe did. Agricultural production plummeted and the country went from a net food exporter to a net importer. He added: "The policy is that the new farmer pays for the improvement on the farm and that money is used to compensate the white farmer, and that is government's position.". Mugabe blamed the slow pace of reform on Britain, which cancelled its promised funding of the programme in the face of corruption allegations. There were other constraints. Giving communal land to individual households, rather than mostly corrupt traditional overseers, will unlock real value, energy and entrepreneurship not only in Zimbabwe, but across the continent. The sectors provided the inputs to commercial agriculture – which created jobs – which meant over and above the jobs on the commercial farms, jobs in the manufacturing sectors aligned to agriculture were also lost. Foreign and local investors moved their money out of the country – and started divesting because their assets were not secure. Terms and Conditions of Use PAIA POPIA ISPA Browser Support, Associate Professor in the Wits School of Governance. Before the land reform, the country was agriculturally almost self-sufficient, but land reform collapsed agricultural productivity to such an extent that the country now imports most products. Whilst there are some A2 farmers who have made a success out of their allocation of land, it is on a much smaller scale than what was previously being done. But, as can be seen throughout Zimbabwe, newly settled populations thrive when they are given training and investment that supports the production of food and cash crops. If a land reform programme is to succeed it must be radical and far reaching. The mini-thesis concludes with a strong argument that although other factors could have affected the outcome of land reform, its failure can be attributed to the governance of the process. This in turn caused massive hyperinflation and a nationwide depression. Zimbabwe’s often violent land reform programme has not been the complete economic disaster widely portrayed, a new study has found. 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