The study is an investigation into the linkage between, landownership and poverty alleviation
in Mashonaland East Province of Zimbabwe. The focus is directed by the fact that in
Zimbabwe, the poorest live in rural areas. The problem of rural poverty has been attributed,
in part, to lack of access to land due to historical imbalances arising from colonialism. The
objective of this study is to find out how the livelihoods of those who were resettled have
been transformed. Despite heated debate among scholars on Zimbabweâs controversial land
reform, a systematic investigation of the relationship between access to land and poverty
alleviation in Zimbabwe is generally weak; consequently, there are gaps in the analysis of
land occupation processes and what is required for sustainable agrarian livelihoods. Indeed,
the programme of land reform is crucial to the resolution of rural poverty. It is, therefore,
important that such a programme be implemented in a fair, just and sustainable manner in the
interest of all the stakeholders within the ambits of the law and constitution of Zimbabwe.
The approach followed in the discussion can be described as moving from the macro to the
micro in that the thesis covers broad but very important contextual issues about the political
history of the land question in Zimbabwe and then narrows down to a discussion of land
reform and poverty in Mashonaland East. The theoretical position of the study is that the land
question in Zimbabwe is by and large, a political issue. The key argument is that distribution
of societyâs scarce resources in Zimbabwe is primarily informed by political calculations
rather than non-partisan concerns for alleviation of poverty at the grassroots of society. Land
is finite and therefore a scarce resource and its redistribution has largely been informed by
political calculations rather than consistent criteria to deal with the plight of the rural poor
based on measured levels of need and poverty. The politicization of land reform in
Zimbabwe has a lot to do with the reproduction of power of the ruling ZANU-PF political
elites. Poverty in Zimbabwe emanates from lack of access by the poor majority to resources
and other material means of life. The theoretical perspective is that governmentâs decisions
on who gets land leads to poverty as the vulnerable groups and less politically connected are
not always prioritized for access to land.
The research paradigm used is the sustainable livelihoods approach, which is influenced by
qualitative methodology. It emphasizes the complexity of rural class structures and the
contingency of individual agency. This approach has, at its center, the individual or
individual households, and tries to understand how each household derives its livelihood. The
theory of justice is also partially used to inform the assessment of the social character of land
reform beneficiaries, in relation to grievances, the procedure of the reform, the social
organization of beneficiaries, and the intended impact of the reform.
Because of the economic and political environment in which the study was done, simple
random sampling was used to select respondents for discussions and interviews. This
approach was justified because it gave each unit an equal chance of being chosen. But the
study is based, on the overall; on a case study method hence the findings may have limited
generalization to contexts outside Mashonaland East. The narrative of the Zimbabwean state is that the land reform programme met its targets.
Resettlement benefited a broad set of people. However empirical evidence examined during
the research shows that there was no significant reduction in rural poverty levels, beneficiary
selection was not done in a just, fair and transparent manner and productivity was generally
low.
The thesis argues that the land reform programme in Zimbabwe is in a crisis characterized by
a lack of transparency and presided over by a state that is itself unclear about the
redistribution strategy that it wants to pursue. There is an ambiguous implementation plan as
well as inadequate capacity enhancing policy parameters that are vital to enable a fair and
objective evaluation of the whole programme.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-08072014-160238 |
| Date | 07 August 2014 |
| Creators | Makunike, Blessing |
| Contributors | Prof K Kondlo |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-08072014-160238/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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