Land policy in Southern Africa : towards human security? : a case study of South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Crises of food production, poverty and deepening inequality are common problems around the world and constitute the distinctive features of the global social landscape including the poorer regions. In the poorer regions and in Southern Africa particularly, land is a key asset in sustaining livelihoods. Ironically, the majority of the people in these poorer regions are landless. The land resource is however of crucial importance to the economies of the Southern African region contributing a major share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment. Colonial land policies institutionalised racial inequality with regard to land in southern Africa. Recent attempts to confront the consequences of historical land expropriation and to redress contemporary land-based inequities, discriminatory legislation and institutions have generated renewed racial conflict in the sub region and created a life of insecurity on the continent, particularly in the southern African region. The objective of human security is to achieve safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease etc, and secure protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily lives. Land policies are of paramount importance in pursuit of human security. Access to land in this regard determines who lives or dies. The study explores post independence and post apartheid land policies in southern Africa using South Africa and Zimbabwe as case studies. It interrogates the linkage between land policy and human security; in particular determining how land policies affect human security. Recent activities in both countries - land invasions and economic collapse in Zimbabwe and high rate of unemployment, inequality and poverty in South Africa - attest to the land issue and clearly spell out the need for land reform. The study shows that Africa’s disadvantaged position (in power and wealth terms) in the international system has made it difficult for African states to address local or national preferences on the issue of land access. Major donor countries and international finance institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF have tended to prevail on African governments to adopt market liberalization mechanisms in tackling the land question. The argument behind this is that land should be given to those who can work it the most and productively while the returns can be distributed to all. As such, the market should be left to determine who has access to land. But the market oriented economic policies which African governments are often forced to adopt through structural adjustment programmes are essentially designed to strengthen multi-national corporations and to integrate elites in the southern African region into the international capitalist system. The reward-and-punishment system facilitated by the free market economy may benefit the local elite but it alienates the poor and undermines human security. Human dignity, food security and poverty reduction demand development agencies, governments and other organisations responsibly devise policies and strategies that will enable assets building and promote self-reliance of poor people and communities. Human security comprising food security, environmental security of individuals, and social and political security among others is critically affected by access to land.