Admos Chimhowu highlights the need for land redistribution in Zimbabwe Presented at 'Moving Forward with Pro-poor Reconstruction in Zimbabwe' International Conference, Harare, Zimbabwe, (25 and 26 August 2009)

2. Of Land Poverty and Inequality
To the extent that its done well there are both economic
and political justifications for a fairer distribution of land
Evidence that countries with better distribution of assets
like land tend to record significantly better rates of growth
than those with skewed patterns
Initial asset inequality hurts the poor through credit-rationing
and limited investment ability
More equal distribution of land has multiplier effects that
have been observed to enhance income growth
General view in the literature supporting the idea that low
levels of income and asset inequality are beneficial for
poverty reduction

3. Reform Type Narrative Poverty Effects
Land
Redistribution
The poor lack productive
assets and need to own or
securely access land to make
a living.
When able to use land and
all else works increased
access can improve farm
incomes
Tenure Reform The poor have insecure
access and ownership rights
and are reluctant invest in
land.
Establishing secure group or
individual tenure
(communal or freehold) will
accord them security and
confidence to invest in land.
Farm Reorganisation Unviable plots limit
production and
participation in commodity
markets.
Consolidating fragmented
plots or reorganising land
use can increase available
land or present new
opportunities for increasing
the productivity of labour
and land.
Administrative Reforms Land conflicts and loss of
land by the poor is often
Modernizing and
decentralising records

4. Of Land and Poverty.....
Key determinant of whether a household is able to
make a living and stay out of poverty in rural
Zimbabwe is access to adequate stocks of assets, built
around access to and ownership of land
Also availability of, and ability to ability to pursue
opportunities for income and consumption
smoothing
Non-farm, off-farm , non-agricultural activities whose
availability is determined by agriculture trends-positive
correlation between availability of non-farm jobs and
agricultural performance

5. Of Land and Poverty in Zimbabwe
Two key issues generally dominate any discussion on
land and poverty in Zimbabwe. These are land
redistribution and tenure reforms
Until the Fast Track Land Reform programme of
2000-2003, land was divided unequally between races.
legacy of colonial occupation and the subsequent land
alienation attendant to settler colonialism

6. Land use Group
1980 2004
Hectares
(million)
Hectares
(million)
Smallholder(communal
Resettlement and A1)
14.4 24.34
Small to Medium Scale
Commercial
1.4 2.83
Large Scale Commercial 15.5 3
Corporate Estates 2.04

7. Unfinished business
Unequal tenure systems creates second class citizens-discrimination
against communal farmers under the
banner of custom: note this is a question of grades of
citizenship different from a security of tenure argument
800,000 plus smallholders occupying some 14 million
hectares of land under communal tenure, while on the
other are nearly 320,000 resettled households occupying
land on conditions that are obviously more favourable
Communal tenure inconsistently applied and understood

8. Unfinished business
Replanning A1 Units
141,000 beneficiaries resettled on A1 units lack basic
social services and infrastructure since most of the
large scale commercial farming areas did not have
social infrastructure.
Can affect their ability to utilise the land they received
through the programme.
Should be ‘replanned’ along the lines of the old
‘accelerated’ resettlement programme of the 1980s as
new settlement projects with full costing for social
and physical infrastructure.

9. Unfinished business
From the 1980s we know that it can cost up to
US$12,000 per farm to provide the basic
infrastructure, training and initial input support
needed for a typical agricultural settlement. To
support the 141,000 A1 beneficiaries would require an
investment close to US$1.69 billion.

10. Land Audit
Utete and Buka Reports raised issues of multiple farm
ownership under A2 schemes
Questions of uptake
Reallocate underutilised land, perhaps to those with
farming expertise who are looking for land to get back
into farming under the new terms and conditions.

11. Compensation fund
For former owners linked to measures to prevent
capital flight- should this be in the form of tax breaks
funded through the treasury?
Could donors match state c commitments?