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Land Policy, Poverty Reduction and Public Action in Zimbabwe
Sam Moyo
September, 2005

http://www.iss.nl/opencms/opencms/land/research/ISS_UNDP/papers/Zimbabwe_paper.pdf

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Introduction: land and poverty discourses in Zimbabwe
A 'fast track', state-driven approach to land reform was introduced during 1997 in Zimbabwe, culminating in extensive land transfers by 2004. Land reform took centre stage in Zimbabwe's politics and economy, and polarised land policy discourses nationally and internationally. The earlier period of 1980-96, represented a relatively "slow track" land redistribution programme, characterised by a market driven approach to land reform. The effects on poverty reduction that arose from these land reforms have not been adequately discussed so far.

Current discourses eschew rigorous analysis of the relationship between land reform policy and public action, and its longer term effects on poverty reduction, development and democratisation. They focus on short term manifestations, such as the land disputes, agricultural decline and the electoral [mis]fortunes of competing political parties. Zimbabwe's fast track land reform has been considered to be an odd aberration (Bernstein, 2002), contrived for political electoral advantage (Sachikonye, 2005), or for black elite interests (Davies, 2005). This discourse subordinates the land issue to 'good governance' procedural questions (Raftopolous, 2003), to be condemned for their human rights transgressions (Hellum and Derman, 2004). The place of land rights in this perspective is not adequately conceptualised or empirically defined, given the contested nature of land rights (Hunzwi1, Sadomba, 2005). The tendency has been to reduce complex and diverse social actions or processes of civil society-state interactions over land, to the atavistic manipulations of a 'pre-modernist' (Worby, 2004), 'authoritarian nationalist' regime, using (however) modern institutions of the state, political parties and 'uncivil' associations.

In general Zimbabwe land redistribution policy envisioned a changing racial composition of access, of landholding sizes, land use norms (exports versus food) and of tenure systems, given the entrenchment of racially structured land access, tenures and production systems. Poverty benefits tended to be defined in general terms of more equitable land and natural resources ownership and de-racialised "commercial" farming.

The main controversy in the land reform debate today is over the efficacy of market led reforms in delivering racially equitable land distribution, vis-à-vis the physical violence and the violation of property rights of land owners and of farm workers, which the militant and state-led approach pursued, having suspended certain land and related laws and 'rights' in order to reverse past injustices. Demands for a poverty oriented land reform grew in 1997, when the 'international community', rejected land expropriation and the deracialisation of commercial farming, in favour of support small scale settlers and at a slow redistributive pace (ODA, 1996).

This chapter assesses the evolution of land policy and social action for reform, in relation to issues of poverty reduction in Zimbabwe, based on three key arguments. First, that Zimbabwe's pursuit of variants of a market led approach to land reform, during 17 of it's 25 years of independence, between 1980 to 1996, and then between 1998 and 1999, rather than the lack of political will per se, led to less land redistribution than was promised or expected. This outcome limited the potential scope for poverty reduction at the national and farm household level. The reigning neoliberal development policy framework then, further limited the prospect of wider poverty gains from land. This induced expanding social agitation for radical reforms.

Second, the chapter argues that the radicalisation of the land reform approach in 1997, and then between 2000 and 2004, towards state driven land transfers, was significantly induced, in terms of land acquisition and allocation, by popular mobilisations of land occupations. This led to extensive land redistribution over 5 years, but yielded mixed poverty reduction gains in the short term (5 years).

The potential positive impacts of this non-market approach to land transfers on poverty reduction at farm household and national level were however limited, not only by the rapid "loss" of substantial agricultural (food and export) production by former land owners and farmworker jobs losses, but also by the wider effects of economic collapse and weak policies, internal opposition to land reform and international isolation.

Third, the chapter argues that the shifts in Zimbabwe's land reform and development policy approaches over 25 years, and the nature of the redistributive outcome, as well as their impacts on poverty reduction, can be explained by complex changes in state-society interactions and relations, occasioned by the negative effects of economic liberalisation and unfulfilled land redistribution. Issues such as, political will, electoral instrumentalisation and weak 'governance', were symptomatic effects of the social (including economic) effects, which played a subordinate part in influencing the pace and nature of land reform, given that the wider role of social movements was more fundamental in radicalising land policy formation.

These three propositions suggest the need to consider the various direct and indirect effects of land reform on poverty, at the micro household and economy-wide level, including the political conflicts that arose from the dramatic shifts in the correlation of social forces that emerged as a result of the contradictions of neoliberalism, and from Zimbabwe's 'dissidence' against the hegemonic models of market based and "internationally supported" approaches to land reform and economic management. This complex interaction of factors suggests that the land and poverty relationship can easily be confounded, in terms of causes and effects, particularly when the long term structural effects of unequal agrarian structures and extroverted development strategy, are not properly taken into account.

The next section outlines the nature of poverty in relation to land access and development policy. The evolution of land reform approaches and their effects on poverty are then discussed, followed by an assessment of the changing public actions and institutional settings of land reform advocacy. The last section draws some conclusions and outlines some elements of pro-poor land policy options.

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