DESPITE three decades of democracy, land ownership remains highly unequal. New research explores why South Africa's land reform programme has delivered limited transformation.
MORE than 30 years after South Africa achieved democracy it remains one of the world’s most unequal countries. The democratic transition has not produced the transfer in wealth and ownership from a white minority to Black majority population that many had hoped for.
Land is at the centre of the debates about this lack of transfer of wealth. During apartheid, because of racist laws around land ownership, Black South Africans could only own land in 13% of the country’s territory even when they made up 80% of the population.
In 1995, the government set an initial target to redistribute 30% of all white-owned land to Black farmers under a market-based programme, which ensured the white farmers could choose whether to sell their land and did so at or above market value.
But only between 12% and 20% of the land has been redistributed so far.For the last seven years, I have studied the land reform programme as a political scientist, merging my knowledge of political, social and economic forces to better understand why land reform has failed to live up to its initial goals.
