South Africa’s land redistribution policy (1994-2008) has been widely publicised, and has come under scrutiny of late from the public, private and government spheres, highlighting a need for research in this area. The research examines progress in South Africa’s land redistribution programme in two of KwaZulu-Natal’s district municipalities, Uthungulu and iLembe. Specifically the research investigates whether the government has paid above market prices when purchasing sugarcane farmland for redistribution in these districts. Moreover, it is illustrated how productivity on redistributed farms has been affected with the changes in ownership. To investigate the research questions, reviews of theories pertaining to property rights, land reform and market structures were conducted. Moreover, two cases studies were conducted in the districts of Uthungulu and iLembe, with assistance from the Department of Land Affairs, Inkezo Land Company and the South African Cane Growers Association. The case study data indicate that above ordinary market prices have been paid (2004-2006) by the government for sugarcane farmland in the districts concerned, and further that productivity has been negatively impacted ‘during’ and ‘post‘ transfer, in the majority of cases.

Thesis (MTech (Public Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2011. / The main objective of this research was to evaluate the impact of Employment Equity Legislation on land reform delivery within the Provincial Land Reform Office of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform in the Western Cape Province. In order to achieve this goal the researcher conducted a literature search of relevant books, journal articles, academic papers, news paper articles, legislation and subordinate legislation, policy documents, official reports, other applicable published and unpublished research materials. In conjunction with the literature search, the researcher developed a survey questionnaire to establish whether employment equity legislation does have a negative impact on land reform delivery within the provincial land reform office in the Western Cape. The survey was conducted arnonqst 60 employees within the Provincial Land Reform Office in Cape Town, including the District Offices of the Provincial Office. Fifty four (54) responses were used in the analysis, which represent a 90% rate of return. Based on the findings of the literature study and the empirical survey, 51.9% respondents' are of the opinion that the implementation of employment equity legislation does have a negative impact on land reform delivery within the provincial land reform office of the Western Cape. The researcher recommends that the department should consider using provincial demographics when employing staff within its provincial offices to ensure a more stable workforce. This is a true reflection of the responses as the majority of the respondents (81.5 %) agreed that Employment Equity (EE) targets should be based on provincial demographics rather than national demographics, whilst 13% of the respondents disagreed with this statement. Seventy seven comma eight percent (77.8 %) of the respondents also agreed that EE should reflect the target market being served. This will go a long way to foster good employer - employee relationships.

This thesis deals with the conceptualization of access to land by the dispossessed as a human right and commences with an account of the struggle for land between the peoples of African and European extractions in South Africa. It is observed that the latter assumed sovereignty over the ancestral lands of the former. The thesis discusses the theoretical foundation of the study and situates the topic within its conceptual parameters. The writer examines the notions of justice and equity in the context of the post apartheid constitutional mandate to redress the skewed policy of the past. It is argued that the dispossession of Africans from lands that they had possessed for thousands of years on the assumption that the land was terra nullius was profoundly iniquitous and unjust. Although the study is technically limited to dispossessions occurring on or after the 13th June 1913, it covers a fairly extensive account of dispossession predating this date. This historical analysis is imperative for two reasons. Besides supporting the writer’s contention that the limitation of restitution to land dispossessed on or after 1913 was arbitrary, it also highlights both the material and non-material cost of the devastating wars of dispossessions. The candidate comments extensively on the post apartheid constitutional property structure which was conceived as a redress to the imbalance created by dispossession. This underlying objective explains why the state’s present land policy is geared towards facilitating access to land for the landless. The thesis investigates the extent to which the present property structure which defines access to land as a human right has succeeded in achieving the stated objective. It reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the land restitution process as well as the question of the payment of just and equitable compensation for land expropriated for restitution. The latter was carefully examined because it plays a crucial role in the success or otherwise of the restitution scheme. The writer argues that the courts have, on occasions, construed just and equitable compensation generously. This approach has failed to reflect the moral component inherent in the Aristotelian corrective justice. This, in the context of South Africa, requires compensation to reflect the fact that what is being paid for is land dispossessed from the forebears of indigenous inhabitants. It seems obvious that the scales of justice are tilted heavily in favour of the propertied class whose ancestors were responsible for this dispossession. This has a ripple effect on the pace of the restitution process. It also seems to have the effect of favouring the property class at the expense of the entire restitution process. The candidate also comments on the court’s differing approaches to the interpretation of the constitutional property clause. The candidate contends that the construction of the property clause and related pieces of legislation in a manner that stresses the maintenance of a balance between private property interest and land reform is flawed. This contention is supported by the fact that these values do not have proportional worth in the present property context of South Africa. The narrow definition of “past racially discriminatory law and practices” and labour tenant as used in the relevant post apartheid land reform laws is criticized for the same reason of its uncontextual approach. A comparative appraisal of similar developments relating to property law in other societies like India and Zimbabwe has been done. The writer has treated the post reform land evictions as a form of dispossession. The candidate notes that the country should guard against allowing the disastrous developments in Zimbabwe to influence events in the country and calls for an amendment of the property clause of the constitution in response to the practical difficulties which a decade of the operation of the current constitution has revealed.

Institute for Rural Development / MRDV

Thesis (Thesis (M.Dev. (Planning and Management)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The purpose of this study is to investigate perspectives of the restitution programme with special reference to the Mamahlola community in the Maruleng Municipality of Limpopo Province in South Africa. The community is among the many who were dispossessed of their land during the apartheid era. After a long struggle, empowered by new legislation passed on the country’s attainment of democracy in 1994, the community received their dispossessed land back. Based on a qualitative research design, the study uses semi-structured interviews to collect data. Three focus groups participated in the study. These consist of the Banareng ba Letsoalo Tribal Council, the Maruleng Local Municipality Ward 9 Ward Committee and the Mamahlola Communal Property Association. The findings of this research reveal that, ironically, the land restitution programme did not bring any improvement to the livelihoods of the Mamahlola community, as would have been expected. Instead, it raised accusations of financial maladministration, poor communication, mistrust, conflict and divisions within the previously homogenous community. The study recommends that the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and the Department of Agriculture should play oversight roles in all settled restitution claims relating to food production, to ensure continuity and proper financial management. Secondly, it recommends that beneficiaries should be trained in skills relevant to land activities to ensure that the owners of the land work the land. Thirdly, the settlement plan should include an employment plan for the beneficiaries to ensure that they also benefit from the land; and lastly, the issue of the distance between the current location and the claimed land needs to be addressed as part of the settlement plan, as it seems to have contributed significantly to the failures of the Mamahlola project and contradicts the objectives of the restitution programme.

This thesis investigates how the inhabitants formed the coastal landscape of northwest Estonia through both internal change and external impact by estate owners, provincial government and imperial decrees. Two villages on the largely Swedish populated Noarootsi peninsula, Einbi (Enby) and Kudani (Gutanäs), are examined in detail. The aim was to answer questions about how the local livelihoods and farming systems of coastal inhabitants changed from the late 1600s to 1940. The background of a gradual weakening of the manorial estate system from 1800 onwards and a rapid development of freehold family farming from the 1860s is important to the analysis. To examine the complex variety of factors and interactions that shape the landscape, an interdisciplinary approach to change has been used. This approach included a conceptual model for the local production unit, such as the individual farm. Information from historical maps, diverse population registers and agricultural censuses were used. The soil cover was examined with samples taken during fieldwork in the studied villages. The study shows how the development of two villages in fairly similar geographic settings differed largely due to socio-political restrictions. During feudal times, the primary changes were related to the fact that local nobility could maintain their land ownership rights and regulations for manorial deliveries and corvée duties. Changes to natural conditions, such as soil quality and land uplift, had no substantial effect on land productivity. From the 19th century, the most important factor was the legalized opportunity to purchase farms as freeholds from estates, as well as through land reforms in an independent Estonia. The traditional niche of coastal Swedish peasants, who depended on a variety of productive activities, remained in practice. As all manor land was nationalized, many new smallholdings and crofts were created based on external activities by inhabitants, such as farm day labor. Farm productivity was now increased primarily by improvement to land quality (use of artificial fertilizers and meadow drainage), and by the introduction of new implements and crops on farms consolidated from open fields.

no abstract available / Development Studies / MA (DEVELOPMENT STUD)

Thesis (Th.M.)--University of South Africa, 2002.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation analyses the relationship between civil society and political leadership within the context of Zimbabwe’s protracted social conflict, particularly through the lens of land policy. Through the use of strategic informants, it yields important insights into the origins, form and impact of political leadership and civil society in a way that will expose the dynamics of elite and grassroots mobilisation and the political context in which land policy is either made or obstructed. Specifically, this dissertation examines two research questions. First, if political leadership is not representative of the citizenry, is land policy more likely to engender overt conflict? Second, if civil society has an autonomous role in the public sphere, is land policy more likely to benefit citizens? This dissertation also confronts an emerging empirical problem: the absence of descriptive data in regards to how civil society and political leadership have engaged in reforming land policy in Zimbabwe during the period of transition from 2008 to 2013. By measuring representation and autonomy – indicators of human needs satisfaction– this dissertation traced each phase of the protracted social conflict as it both helped to create the conditions for a liberation model of representation while simultaneously further exacerbating protracted social conflict within Zimbabwe. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ontleed die verhouding tussen die burgerlike samelewing en politieke leierskap veral deur die lens van grondbeleid, binne die konteks van Zimbabwe se uitgerekte sosiale konflik. Dit het ten doel om belangrike insigte op te lewer in die oorsprong, vorm en impak van politieke leierskap en die burgerlike samelewing. Die word blootgestel in 'n manier wat die dinamika van die elite en mobilisering op grondvlak in ag neem soweel as die politieke konteks waarin grondbeleid óf gemaak is of belemmer word. Hierdie tesis konfronteer ook 'n opkomende empiriese probleem: die afwesigheid van beskrywende data met betrekking tot die betrokkenheod van die burgerlike samelewing en politieke leierskap tydens die grondhervorming proses in Zimbabwe gedurende die tydperk van oorgang tussen 2008 en 2013. Deur die meting van verteenwoordiging en outonomie - aanwysers van menslike behoeftes bevrediging - word elke fase van die uitgerekte sosiale konflik ondersoek met betrekking tot hoe ‘n bevryding model van verteenwoordigheid beide gehelp het om die voorwaardes te skepvir die eindeiging van die PSC; maar terselfdertyd het dit ook die sosiale konflik in Zimbabwe verder uitgerek. !

Thesis (LLM (Public Law))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The 1996 Constitution provides in s 25(7) that individuals and communities who had been dispossessed of rights in land after 19 June 1913, as a result of past discriminatory laws, may claim restitution or equitable redress. The Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994 reiterates the 1913 cut-off date for restitution claims. The cut-off date appears to preclude pre-1913 land dispossessions. Various reasons are cited for this date, the most obvious being that it reflects the date on which the Black Land Act came into effect. The Richtersveld and Popela decisions of the lower courts appear to confirm the view that historically based land claims for dispossessions that occurred prior to 1913 are excluded from the restitution process. In Australia and Canada restitution orders have been made possible by the judicially crafted doctrine of aboriginal land rights. However, historical restitution claims based on this doctrine are constrained by the assumption that the Crown, in establishing title during colonisation, extinguished all existing titles to land. This would have meant that the indigenous proprietary systems would have been lost irrevocably through colonisation. In seeking to overcome the sovereignty issue, Australian and Canadian courts have distinguished between the loss of sovereignty and the loss of title to land. In this way, the sovereignty of the Crown is left intact while restitution orders are rendered possible. South African courts do not have to grapple with the sovereignty issue since post-apartheid legislation authorises the land restitution process. The appeal decisions in Richtersveld and Popela recognised that some use rights survived the colonial dispossession of ownership. This surviving right was later the subject of a second dispossession under apartheid. By using this construction, which is not unlike the logic of the doctrine of aboriginal title in fragmenting proprietary interests, the second dispossession could then be said to meet the 1913 cut-off date, so that all historically based land claims are not necessarily excluded by the 1913 cut-off date. However, it is still possible that some pre-1913 dispossessions could not be brought under the umbrella of the Richtersveld and Popela construction, and the question whether historically based restitution claims are possible despite the 1913 cut-off date will resurface, especially if the claimants are not accommodated in the government’s land redistribution programme / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die 1996 Grondwet bepaal in a 25(7) dat individue en gemeenskappe wat na 19 Junie 1913 van ‘n reg in grond ontneem is, as gevolg van rasgebaseerde wetgewing en praktyke, geregtig is om herstel van sodanige regte of gelykwaardige vergoeding te eis. Die Wet op Herstel van Grondregte 22 van 1994herhaal die 1913-afsnydatum vir grondeise. Dit lyk dus asof die afsnydatum die ontneming van grond voor 1913 uitsluit. Verskeie redes word vir hierdie datum aangevoer, waarvan die bekendste is dat dit die datum is waarop die Swart Grond Wet in werking getree het. Dit beslissing van die laer howe in beide die Richtersveld- en die Popela-beslissings bevestig blykbaar dat ontneming van grond of regte in grond voor 1913 van die restitusie-proses uitgesluit word. In Australië en Kanada is restitusiebevele moontlik gemaak deur die leerstuk van inheemse grondregte. Historiese restitusie-eise in hierdie jurisdiksies word egter aan bande gelê deur die veronderstelling dat die Kroon, deur die vestiging van titel gedurende kolonialisering, alle vorige titels op die grond uitgewis het. Dit sou beteken dat die inheemsregtelike grondregsisteme onherroeplik verlore geraak het deur kolonialisering. Ten einde die soewereiniteitsprobleem te oorkom het die Australiese en Kanadese howe onderskei tussen die verlies van soewereiniteit en die verlies van titel tot die grond. Op hierdie wyse word die soewereiniteit van die Kroon onaangeraak gelaat terwyl restitusiebevele steeds ‘n moontlikheid is. Suid-Afrikaanse howe het nie nodig gehad om die soewereiniteitskwessie aan te spreek nie omdat post-apartheid wetgewing die herstel van grondregte magtig. Die appélbeslissings in Richtersveld en Popela erken dat sekere gebruiksregte die koloniale ontneming van eiendom oorleef het. Die oorblywende gebruiksregte is later ‘n tweede keer ontneem as gevolg van apartheid. Deur gebruikmaking van hierdie konstruksie, wat dieselfde logika volg as die leerstuk van inheemsregtelike regte en berus op fragmentasie van eiendomsaansprake, kan gesê word dat die tweede ontneming van grond wel binne die 1913-afsnydatum val. Gevolglik sal alle historiese restitusie-eise nie noodwendig deur die 1913- afsnydatum uitgesluit word nie. Dit is steeds moontlik dat sommige pre-1913 ontnemings nooit onder die vaandel van die Richtersveld- en Popela-beslissings gebring sal kan word nie, en die vraag of histories gebaseerde eise moontlik is ongeag die 1913-afsnydatum sal daarom weer opduik, veral indien die grondeisers nie geakkommodeer word in die grondherverdelingsprogram van die staat nie.