Thesis (M.Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / The purpose of this study was to evaluate post-settlement support given to beneficiaries of land restitution on selected farms in Mpumalanga Province. The study used qualitative and quantitative research methods. Data collection was done using focus group discussions and semi-structured questionnaires. Three groups of respondents participated in the study: the beneficiaries (n=193), government officials (n=13) and private sector [NGOs] (n=5). The study highlighted the inadequacy of support provided to beneficiaries. Support was inadequate in terms of infrastructure, provision of training services and improving access to markets. The findings revealed that there is poor participation by the youth and educated people in the projects. The study also found that strategic partners did not significantly contribute towards viability of projects, primarily, because of conflicting interests between the two. The study recommends that the government, with the private sector, should make enough resources available and attract the youth and educated people to participate in the projects.

No abstract available. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Black fanners' contribution and percentage share of the marketed agricultural produce (especially maize and cotton) increased dramatically following Zimbabwe's independence, especially between 1982 and 1987. Almost unanimously, observers in government and diplomatic circles spoke of this increase as 'phenomenal', attributing it to being a direct result of the government's efforts to increase agricultural production, and calling it a 'success story' and 'agrarian miracle'. This 'miracle' description was adopted by the state controlled and independent media, international donor and 'development' agencies, alike. By 1992, the levels of production achieved in the mid-1980s would not be repeated and this was blamed primarily on drought and the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) adopted by government in 1990. The direct impact of ESAP was the further reduction of government capacity and resources available to support the resettlement sector. By 2000, Zimbabwe was embroiled in a rural upheaval that threatened, reversed and undennined all the gains of the 1980s. The miracle discourse disappeared and in its place agro-pessimism took centre space. The land question rose to the fore amid a heightened outcry of landlessness, Communal Area congestion, poor access to institutional support and declining livelihoods and food security, among other things. This renewed rural crisis raised questions about what had happened to the miracle, exposed the run-down economy, and deepened undemocratic tendencies and a polarised political, economic and social space. The thesis proposed here is that the Zimbabwean government failed to take advantage and expand on the potential for an increased role of the rural sector in the cash economy. What emerged from closer scrutiny of the so-called agrarian transfonnation package for African agriculture was a poorly designed, uncoordinated and under funded quick fix to rural development that hardly moved beyond the mere transfer of land. Notwithstanding the participation of rural communities in the war of national liberation and the high profile nature of the land question during the Second Chimurenga, the post-colonial state apparatus - dominated by an urban nationalist petit bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the weak lobby of the beneficiaries of land refonn on the other - placed African agriculture into the back-seat of policy and political economic priorities. Evidence from Mayo Resettlement Scheme, the primary case study in this thesis, suggests that the argued institutional support and structural changes (basis of the miracle) were at best minimal, under-funded, crisis-averse, ad hoc and poorly coordinated, lacking the support of a concrete policy base, making the miracle at most fragile and in the final analysis unsustainable. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Since 2005, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its opinion deeming the Israeli Separation Wall and settlements illegal, there have been significant developments in the nonviolent methods adopted for countering Israeli occupation. While Palestinian nonviolent resistance has existed throughout history, from this time onwards, there have been a number of factors that give this period its unique traits. The most central method that has been adopted by all nonviolent actors is to influence economic interaction with Israel in a way that is in line with international law, and is supportive of the official positions adopted by the countries that nonviolent activists aim to influence. While Israeli settlements are illegal according to international law, they include industrial areas that export products to many countries. Through this contradiction, nonviolent activists have found an opportunity to pressurise countries to end their economic ties with those settlements, and consequently put pressure Israel to change its settlement policies. Some of these call for ending economic ties with Israel itself, because it is upholding the settlements, and some call for ending ties only with Israeli settlements; in other words, some target the criminal and others just the crime. In 2010, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) adopted its first unilateral program that was not in agreement with Israel, and which introduced a strategy for the cessation of economic ties with Israeli settlements. This was done through a mixture of national public awareness campaigns to influence consumer behaviour, and the introduction of legislation by which it became illegal for Palestinian enterprises to have any economic ties with Israeli settlements. After starting by focussing on its own markets, the PNA called upon other countries to follow suit by lobbying government officials, parliamentarians, and financial institutions. However, this action came five years after a call for a full boycott, including divestment and sanctions against Israel, made by Palestinian civil society organizations and political parties. This call, known as the BDS call had gained tremendous support and amalgamated a large pool of members internationally by the time that the PNA started with its campaign for a limited boycott. This disparity has had a significant influence on the dynamics of the boycott movement, both locally in Palestine and globally. This research explores those dynamics. It takes an in-­‐‑depth look at the effort to end economic ties with settlements, including who the actors are, what they aim for, how they interact, and how effective they have been. The PNA’s program to end economic ties with settlements was chosen as a case study for this doctoral thesis, because of its central position in relation to the topic and the unique access to its documentation through the author’s previous role as its director.

Thesis (MPA.) -- University of the North, 2001 / Refer to document

Settlement policy in the Third World has been stimulated by the availability of public land. This availability of public land has prompted many Third World countries to adopt policies or schemes called resettlement, transmigration, or land development. These have been presented as potential means for addressing numerous agendas held by Third World countries. Settlement policies have been used to increase agricultural production and make idle land productive. Spatial imbalances of population distribution have been addressed via settlement policies. For national security, settlement policies have been used to exploit frontier lands. Solutions to serious political problems including lack of agricultural self-sufficiency, poverty, landlessness, and unemployment have been sought through settlement policies. Huge amounts of financial resources have been invested in Third World planned settlements, however, their performance has not been very encouraging. If not completely abandoned by settlers, the settlements gave officials, planners, and policy makers cause for serious concern. For the most part, settlements have been costly relative to the number of settlers. In many instances, agricultural productivity was low. I have presented comparative case studies of land settlement policies which examine the factors that accounted for the success or failure of resettlement projects. I examined the resettlement projects from the point of view of the settlers in relation to the objectives of the policy makers. This study reports the findings of case studies concerning Iraq, Somalia, Ethiopia, the United Republic of Tanzania, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Israel. A comparative analysis of land settlement policies in Third World nations with varying political, social, and economic conditions is presented. It will be shown that land settlement policies in Third World countries, by and large, failed to reach objectives and are not now viewed as viable options for land development.

This thesis is a detailed account of Zimbabwe's controversial fast-track land reform programme. Zimbabwe's land reform history has been discussed extensively, with a focus on land redistribution. The fast-track land reform programme transferred eleven million hectares of land from 4 000 white commercial farmers to 51 543 landless peasant families. The thesis begins by offering some land reform theories and gives an overview of the land question in Southern Africa. This is followed by a discussion of Zimbabwe's land question from a historical perspective. Next is a periodised account of the successes and failures of land reform attempts made by the Zimbabwean government from independence in 1980 to 1998 when the fast-track land reform programme was conceived. Zimbabwe's political and economic situation at this time is significant. The context for fast-track land reform includes a discussion about the national question in Zimbabwe and the deteriorating status of white citizenship; the rise of Zimbabwe's liberation war veterans as a formidable force and the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change as a strong political party that was challenging, among others, the dominance of the ruling Zanu-PF party and its policies. The blueprint for fast-track land reform is discussed in order to contrast it to how the reform unfolded in practice. In this regard, the response of the international community to the violence and lawlessness that characterised fast-track land reform is worth mentioning, especially since it has bearing on how Zimbabweans are trying to cope with life in a radically altered physical and social environment, following the land reform exercise. The consequences of fast-track land reform are analysed in terms of development and the plight of Zimbabwe's farm workers; the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of farm workers, white commercial farmers and others in Zimbabwe's countryside and whether or not fast-track land reform beneficiaries can successfully engage in agriculture to improve their standard of living. The Vumba and Burma Valley case study is illustrative of how fasttrack land reform was implemented and its socio-economic impact on Zimbabwe's poor and marginalised groups, for instance, female farm workers. The case study offers valuable insights about the survival strategies that ordinary people affected by the land reform exercise are adopting in order to cope with their new circumstances. Data was gathered from a focus group discussion (pilot study), in-depth semi-structured interviews and observation on three farms, as well as interviews with a few government officials, government documents and newspaper reports. The study is useful to countries that are planning or already implementing land reform, for example, South Africa.

From the year 2000, land became the key signifier for tackling the unfinished business of the decolonisation process in Zimbabwe, notably by rectifying the racially-based land injustices of the past through land redistribution. This took the form of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). However, the racialised character and focus of the FTLRP tended to mask or at least downplay important gender dimensions to land in Zimbabwe. Colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe (up to 2000) had instigated, propagated and reproduced land ownership, control and access along a distinctively patriarchal basis which left women either totally excluded or incorporated in an oppressive manner. This patriarchal structuring of the land question was rooted in institutions, practices and discourses. Although a burgeoning number of studies have been undertaken on the FTLRP, few have had a distinctively gender focus in seeking to identify, examine and assess the effect of the programme on patriarchal relations and the socio-economic livelihoods of rural women. This thesis makes a contribution to filling this lacuna by offering an empirically-rich study of land redistribution in one particular district in Zimbabwe, namely, Goromonzi District. This entails a focus on women on A1 resettlement farms in the district (and specifically women who came from nearby customary areas) and on women who continue to live in customary areas in the district. My thesis concludes that the FTLRP is seriously flawed in terms of addressing and tackling the patriarchal structures that underpin the Zimbabwean land question.

This research appraises the impact of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme at three resettled communities in Kadoma District, Zimbabwe. In particular it assesses the livelihood practices of land recipients and their effects on the natural environment. Two of the communities, Lanteglos and CC Molina were resettled under the A1 villagised and self-contained settlement scheme and are found in the Natural Farming Region III. Pamene, the third community, was resettled under the A2 small-scale commercial settlement scheme and is found in the Natural Farming Region IIb. Multiple research methods including household surveys, interviews, observations, reviews of literature and map construction through the use of Geographic Information Systems, allowed for the collection of empirical, descriptive, and spatial data to provide for the appraisal. The land use practices included dry land crop production, livestock rearing, vegetable gardening and exploitation of the natural environment for a variety of purposes. Farming was mostly subsistence with the use of traditional equipment by all three communities. Tenure was perceived to be insecure by beneficiaries and although a variety of papers to show ownership were held, none provided for leasing or freehold tenure. Despite acquiring natural capital from the resettlement process, the findings of this research show low levels of financial, physical and social capital amongst beneficiaries. Moreover climatic variability, the declining macro-economic and unstable political environment and little support from government have adversely affected the livelihoods of beneficiaries. The implication of all this has been a reduction in livelihoods that are based solely on agricultural production, leading to off-farm practices primarily exploiting the natural environment. The long term effect would be increased degradation of the environment, leading to reduced arable and grazing land, and thereby hindering sustainable livelihoods from farming. Recommendations are proposed based on this research’s findings being typical in Zimbabwe. Central to this is the need for government to revise its present land policy and, provide for a comprehensive and holistic land policy that should be based on the vision of how agriculture should evolve in Zimbabwe

Institute of Rural Development / PHDRDV