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Some
new publications on land in Zimbabwe
Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser, Oxfam GB
March
2004
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/livelihoods/landrights/
1. Fast Track
Land Reform
i) Report of the Presidential Land Review Committee on the Implementation
of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme, 2000-2002, (2003, 'The
Utete Report') http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000622/P600-Utete_PLRC_00-02.pdf
Note: extracts
from this controversial report began appearing in The Herald in
October 2003 and it was subsequently published minus some sensitive
sections on multiple ownership of land by people in high places.
The report is divided into 4 parts: an introduction; consolidated
findings and recommendations on immediate measures pertaining to
programme implementation; provincial profiles; general and overarching
issues. Despite being commissioned by President Mugabe and regularly
proclaiming the success of the fast track, the report highlights
in detail many of the serious problems encountered, and it caused
a shock by revealing that the beneficiaries were only half the number
the Government had previously claimed.
ii) Parliament
of Zimbabwe, Second Report of the Portfolio Committee on Lands,
Agriculture, Water, Development, Rural Resources and Resettlement,
(Presented to Parliament 11 June 2003. S.C.11, 2003).
http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000616/index.php
Note: a cross-party
parliamentary committee which investigated (January-March 2003)
prior to Utete. The report contains an introduction; institutions
in fast track resettlement; land acquisition and redistribution:
an assessment of progress; agricultural production; fast track and
the management of natural resources; provision of social services;
farm workers in fast track resettlement; conclusion. Curiously,
the Utete Report scarcely mentioned this report.
iii) Nelson
Marongwe, 'The Fast Track Resettlement and Urban Development Nexus:
the Case for Harare', (March 2003) http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/livelihoods/landrights/downloads/harare_fast_track.doc
Note: contains
an introduction and context, research methods, the policy framework
for urban and peri-urban development, an overview of fast track
resettlement, fast track and peri-urban settlement, concluding remarks.
2. The MDC's
Land and Agrarian Policy
iv)
RESTART: Our Path to Social Justice: The MDC's Economic Programme
for Reconstruction, Stabilisation, Recovery and Transformation (January
2004). pp.16-17 'Resolving the Land Question', pp.42-3 'Agrarian
Reform'.
http://www.zwnews.com/RESTARTpdfa.pdf
Note: there
are 6 chapters, on the political framework; national economic priority
issues; macro-economic strategy; social agenda and empowerment;
sector strategies; and implementing Restart.
3. Land and
Livelihoods
v)
Michael Roth and Francis Gonese (Eds). Delivering Land and Securing
Rural Livelihoods: Post-Independence Land Reform and Resettlement
in Zimbabwe (B&D Creatif Pensant, Harare 2003).
An electronic version is available as: Harare and Madison, Wisconsin:
Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe, and
Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison (June 2003).
http://www.ies.wisc.edu/ltc/live/zimbabwe/zimbook/zimbook.pdf
Note: this 484
page work is the culmination of a joint research programme between
CASS and LTC (1999-2003) which concluded with a conference in Nyanga
on 26-28 March 2003. This volume is a collection of research outputs
prepared by research teams for the conference and subsequently revised.
It also includes a number of invited perspectives by development
practitioners within Government and civil society. There are 19
chapters divided into 5 sections: agrarian contracts; land distribution
through private markets; resettlement and beneficiary support; land
administration and decentralisation; the way forward.
vi) Michael
Roth, 'Delivering Land and Securing Rural Livelihoods: Synthesis
and Way Forward?'
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/livelihoods/landrights/downloads/roth_synthesis.rtf
Note: this is
the concluding chapter from the above study which aims to synthesise
the key findings of the research papers and development practitioner
perspectives in this volume. It examines incoherencies, trust and
transition, and proposes a strategic policy roadmap in 4 phases
for re-engaging government, donors and civil society in land and
agrarian reform.
vii) New Agrarian
Contracts in Zimbabwe: Innovations in Production and Leisure (Proceedings
of Workshop hosted by the Department of Economic History, University
of Zimbabwe, Harare, 13 September 2002).
http://www.ies.wisc.edu/ltc/live/zimbabwe/newagr_02.pdf
Note: this is
a product of the same CASS / LTC research project mentioned above.
It contains 8 chapters featuring contract farming, the Honde Valley
tea collection scheme, sugar, sharecropping in Gokwe, ecotourism,
conservation, and small-scale game ranching.
4. Farm Workers
viii)
Lloyd M. Sachikonye, The Situation of Farm Workers after Land Reform
in Zimbabwe. A report prepared for the Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe
(May 2003).
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/livelihoods/landrights/downloads/zimfwsit.rtf
Note: An executive
summary and recommendations are followed by 5 chapters: on the land
question, reform and farm workers; the scope and process of fast
track reform; the impact of land reform on farm workers' livelihoods;
food security, vulnerable groups, HIV/AIDS and coping strategies;
after the 'promised land' - towards the future. The study reveals
that by early 2003, only about 100,000 of the original 320,000 farm
workers were still employed on the farms, the others were jobless
and landless and have lost their entitlement to housing, basic social
services and subsidised food. Only a quarter received severance
packages. Family structures were under severe stress. There was
an uneasy relationship with land reform beneficiaries, with conflicts
over housing, land, water, food. There are recommendations on inputs,
infrastructure, coping strategies, HIV/AIDS, informal settlements,
skills, compensation, the need for transparent agrarian reform,
conflict resolution, citizenship, and future models in the region
- in which farm workers need to be integrated from the beginning.
5. A new
book on Land, State and Nation
ix)
Amanda Hammar, Brian Raftopoulos & Stig Jensen (Eds), Zimbabwe's
Unfinished Business: Rethinking Land, State and Nation in the Context
of Crisis (Harare: Weaver Press Ltd, 2003). ISBN 1779220111 340pp.
£20.95 / $34.95, paperback. Just published in Harare by Weaver
weaver@mweb.co.zw available
in the UK through African Books Collective, Oxford: krisia.cook@africanbookscollective.com
and in North America through Michigan State University Press: msupress@msu.edu
Contains: Amanda
Hammar and Brian Raftopoulos: Zimbabwe's Unfinished Business: Rethinking
Land, State and Nation; Eric Worby: The End of Modernity in Zimbabwe?
Passages from Development to Sovereignty; Jocelyn Alexander: 'Squatters',
Veterans and the State in Zimbabwe; Amanda Hammar: The Making and
Unma(s)king of Local Government in Zimbabwe; Nelson Marongwe: Farm
Occupations and Occupiers in the New Politics of Land in Zimbabwe;
Blair Rutherford: Belonging to the Farm(er): Farm Workers, Farmers,
and the Shifting Politics of Citizenship; Brian Raftopoulos: The
State in Crisis: Authoritarian Nationalism and Distortions of Democracy
in Zimbabwe; Mandivamba Rukuni and Stig Jensen: Land, Growth and
Governance: Tenure Reform and Visions of Progress in Zimbabwe; Ben
Cousins: Zimbabwe's Crisis and the Politics of Land, Democracy and
Development in Southern Africa.
Note: this is
a really excellent book, based on a conference held in Copenhagen
in 2001 (see http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/livelihoods/landrights/downloads/zim2001.rtf).
The introduction is the most helpful single piece I have come across
in terms of helping readers understand the manifold complexities
of Zimbabwe today, while the individual chapters are almost uniformly
strong.
6. Part of
an article on Agrarian Questions and the Politics of Land
x)
Henry Bernstein, '"Changing Before Our Very Eyes": Agrarian
Questions and the Politics of Land in Capitalism Today', Journal
of Agrarian Change, Volume 4 Issue 1-2 January and April 2004, pp.190-225
Note: the concluding
section (pp.210-20) of this theoretical piece looks at Zimbabwe,
'a unique case of comprehensive, regime-sanctioned, confiscatory
land redistribution in the world today', and makes use of the Hammar
et al book and the Sachikonye report cited above. It is divided
into these sections: context; class structure and the case for land
reform: 'worker-peasants' and farm workers; land redistribution:
an outline; fast track resettlement: some immediate effects; the
politics of land redistribution in Zimbabwe.
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