Elsevier

Land Use Policy

Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2013, Pages 670-676
Land Use Policy

Considering the multiple purposes of land in Zimbabwe's economic recovery

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2012.05.004Get rights and content

Abstract

A preoccupation with the idea of land as a productive asset continues to dominate donor policy prescriptions imposed on poor nations of the world. The presumption is that a view of land as a productive asset implies security which then induces investment and improvements in agricultural productivity. Emerging evidence from Zimbabwe's fast track land reform programme shows a nuanced and complex picture whereby land has multiple and often conflicting meanings to individuals, groups, and the state: as a productive asset, political instrument, symbol of belonging, and as a safety net for the poor. Any policy to support a revitalized agricultural sector in post – crisis Zimbabwe will need to take account of the multiple meanings of land and build on emerging trends of land reform beneficiary, white farmer, and private sector collaboration; as well as livelihoods diversification.

Section snippets

The urgent imperative

Since 2009, a coalition government in Zimbabwe has been working to stabilize the economy and create the necessary conditions for much needed economic recovery. However, because “the land question” has not been resolved, it uneasily sits atop the development agenda. This represents a substantial danger because international development assistance in sub-Saharan Africa continues to suffer from conceptual incoherence and durable colonial ideational prejudices (World Development Report, 2006,

The contending purposes of land

What do we mean by the contending purposes of land? Our point in raising this matter is to stress that land is not—and cannot be—just one thing. The meaning of land changes over time and these differing meanings can both co-exist and yet come into conflict with each other (Bruce, 2008). Land as with much of our natural world is what we make of it, and as with an economy, is always in the process of becoming (Bromley, 2003, Bromley, 2006, Bromley, 2008a, Bromley, 2008b).

Land policy discourses post-2000

In the period following the launch of the controversial and chaotic Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) in 2000, Zimbabwe has been experiencing a continuous food deficit. The FTLRP was accompanied by a massive downturn in commercial agriculture, and a deepening political and economic crisis. GDP per capita declined at an average of 10.75 per cent per year between 2000 and 2003. In 2005, 40 per cent of the population was considered food insecure due to reduced food availability and decreased

The way forward

The discussion about land as a productive asset and land as place within the context of the FTLRP has raised four issues that need to be part of a recipe for sustainable economic recovery in Zimbabwe. Sustained economic recovery requires careful attention to the contentious issue of: (1) “belonging”; (2) tenure security; (3) improved collaboration between land-reform beneficiaries and the private sector; and (4) livelihood diversification and safety nets.

Conclusions

The basis of continuing conflict in Zimbabwe remains the unresolved land question—and this remains an impediment to economic recovery. Sustained economic recovery will require a democratic political settlement that balances rights and redress, as well as the adoption of a broad package of measures including infrastructure, financing, input supply, research and extension, technology, institutions, and policies that enable agriculture to grow (Chavunduka and Bromley, 2010, Scoones et al., 2011).

References (71)

  • D.W. Bromley

    Property relations and economic development: the other land reform

    World Development

    (1989)
  • E. Sjaastad et al.

    Indigenous land rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: appropriation, security and investment demand

    World Development

    (1997)
  • C. Alden et al.

    Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa

    (2009)
  • J. Alexander

    The Unsettled Land: State-making & the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe 1893–2003

    (2006)
  • L.C. Becker

    Property Rights: Philosophic Foundations

    (1977)
  • T.A. Benjaminsen et al.

    Formalization of land rights: some empirical evidence from Mali, Niger and South Africa

    Land Use Policy

    (2008)
  • D.W. Bromley

    Economic Interests and Institutions: The Conceptual Foundations of Public Policy

    (1989)
  • D.W. Bromley

    Environment and Economy: Property Rights and Public Policy

    (1991)
  • D.W. Bromley

    Regulatory takings: coherent concept or logical contradiction?

    Vermont Law Review

    (1993)
  • D.W. Bromley

    Land-use policy as volitional pragmatism

    Agricultural and Resource Economics

    (2003)
  • D.W. Bromley

    Sufficient Reason: Volitional Pragmatism and the Meaning of Economic Institutions

    (2006)
  • D.W. Bromley

    Land and economic development: new institutional arrangements

  • D.W. Bromley

    Formalising property relations in the developing world: the wrong prescription for the wrong malady

    Land Use Policy

    (2008)
  • Bruce, J. W., 1993. The Variety of Reform: A Review of Recent Experience with Land Reform and the Reform of Land...
  • J.W. Bruce

    Comparing Communal and Individual Ownership

  • J.W. Bruce

    The multilateral development bank as legal midwife: delivering property rights reform

  • H. Campbell

    Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation

    (2003)
  • J. Chaumba et al.

    From Jambanja to planning: the reassertion of technocracy in land reform in South-Eastern Zimbabwe?

    The Journal of Modern African Studies

    (2003)
  • C. Chavunduka et al.

    Beyond the crisis in Zimbabwe: sorting out the land question

    Development Southern Africa

    (2010)
  • O.A. Chimhowu

    Extending the grain basket to the margins: spontaneous land resettlement and changing livelihoods in the Hurungwe District, Zimbabwe

    Journal of Southern African Studies

    (2002)
  • K. Chitiyo

    Harvest of Tongues: Zimbabwe's ‘Third Chimurenga’ and the making of an Agrarian revolution

  • L. Cliffe et al.

    An overview of fast track land reform in Zimbabwe: editorial introduction

    Journal of Peasant Studies

    (2011)
  • B. Cousins et al.

    Communal land rights, democracy and traditional leaders in post-apartheid South Africa

  • K. Deininger

    Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction

    (2003)
  • K. Deininger et al.

    The evolution of the World Bank's Land Policy: principles, experience, and practice

    The World Bank Research Observer

    (1999)
  • V. Dzingirai

    Resettlement and contract farming in Zimbabwe: the case of Mushandike

  • F. Ellis

    Household strategies and rural livelihood diversification

    The Journal of Development Studies

    (1998)
  • FAO

    Gender and Land Compendium of Country Studies

    (2005)
  • A. Hammar et al.

    Zimbabwe's Unfinished business: rethinking land, state and nation

  • D. Hasluck

    Leasing and sharecropping contracts for increasing beneficiary access to land

  • IMF, 2005. Zimbabwe: Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix IMF Country Report No. 05/359, International Monetary...
  • H.B. Kinsey

    Survival or growth? Temporal dimensions of rural livelihoods in risky environments

    Journal of Southern African Studies

    (2002)
  • H.B. Kinsey

    Zimbabwe's land reform program: underinvestment in post-conflict transformation

    World Development

    (2004)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text