The policy–practice gap: a comment on South Africa's land redistribution

ABSTRACT

Land reforms have been implemented in many parts of the world because of both justice and the attractive developmental policy objectives of improving poor people’s welfare – as the prime beneficiaries. Land reform also facilitates rural economic growth. In some parts of the world, like China and India, there is evidence that land reform has been effective in poverty reduction and in enabling economic growth. However, in other parts of the world, like South Africa, the impact of land reform has been very minimal mainly due to poor policy implementation, which entails inadequate support structures. Using an integrative literature review approach and key policy documents on South Africa’s land reform, this article dissects this policy–practice gap in South Africa’s land redistribution policy and proposes that land redistribution be implemented by a private independent entity to reduce state bureaucracy and inefficiencies and, in turn, improve execution.

KEYWORDS:

• Planning
• agricultural policy
• development
• land reform
• SDG 1

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 According to Pringle (2013), by the end of apartheid, Black Africans had access to only 13 per cent of land under communal tenure in poorly developed Black spots (homelands) as opposed to Whites who owned about 82 per cent of agricultural land under freehold tenure (tradeable rights).

2 The South African land reform policy is based on the World Bank’s economic theories which informed the willing buyer–willing seller approach.

3 In South Africa, only 12.6 per cent of the country’s 16 million hectares is suitable for dry land crop production, of which only 4 per cent (4.9 million hectares) is high-potential land (Pringle 2013, 37).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Siphe Zantsi

Siphe Zantsi holds a doctoral degree in agricultural economics from Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Since his doctoral thesis which focused on land redistribution, he has done a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Johannesburg on South African land reform. Currently he works as an agricultural economist at the Agricultural Research Council in Pretoria.

Rudzani Nengovhela

Rudzani Nengovhela holds a doctoral degree in agricultural economics from the University of Limpopo. Her doctoral thesis focused on household food security in one district municipality in Limpopo. She is now a postdoctoral research fellow in the University of Limpopo.