Browsing by Author "Cliffe, Lionel"

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    Another countryside? Policy options for land and agrarian reform in South Africa
    (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2009) Aliber, Michael; Andrews, Mercia; Baiphethi, Mompati; Cliffe, Lionel; Hall, Ruth; Jacobs, Peter; Jara, Mazibuko; Kleinbooi, Karin; Lahiff, Edward; Zamchiya, Phillan
    Land reform in South Africa is a political project that has foundered. For years, the process has been variously described as being ‘in crisis’, ‘at a crossroads’, ‘at an impasse’ or simply ’stuck’. This still seems as true as ever, as political pressure is mounting to find new solutions to old problems. In recent years, the issue of ‘delivery’, and how to speed it up, has taken centre stage and become a justificatory framework for arguments about how to reconfigure roles of the state and private sector in land reform. In the process, little attention has been given to the relationship between policy change and mobilisation from below. In the absence of sustained and organised pressure from rural people themselves, it appears that the shifts underway in land reform policy are not so much about ‘delivery’ as about reframing the entire project. Increasingly, the debates on land reform centre not so much on the mechanisms to be used, as on the vision that is to be pursued – something about which existing policy is remarkably silent. At stake is nothing less than what, and whom, land reform is for. South Africans are deeply divided on this question.
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    Policy options for land reform in South Africa: New Institutional Mechanisms?
    (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2007) Cliffe, Lionel
    Since the 2005 Land Summit, new approaches to land reform have been on the agenda, yet there remains little clarity on the way forward. The main focus has been on means of accelerating the redistribution of land through new modes of acquiring land. Acquisition is an important matter but if treated in isolation risks mis-specifying the core problems evident in land reform in South Africa. A new phase of land reform located within a wider agrarian reform is needed and will require new institutional arrangements. Any alternative strategy will have to revise the institutional mechanisms that have been handling land reform thus far: are the procedures and the institutions that are in place to design and implement land reform adequate and appropriate to the kind of new tasks envisaged? What new farming units and activities are intended, and what post-transfer support will be required to make this agricultural system productive? This paper explores mechanisms appropriate to one kind of agricultural alternative: a vision of a productive, small-scale essentially household farm sector.
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    Policy options for land reform in South Africa: New institutional mechanisms?
    (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2007-10) Cliffe, Lionel
    Since the 2005 Land Summit, new approaches to land reform have been on the agenda, yet there remains little clarity on the way forward. The main focus has been on means of accelerating the redistribution of land through new modes of acquiring land. Acquisition is an important matter but if treated in isolation risks mis-specifying the core problems evident in land reform in South Africa. A new phase of land reform located within a wider agrarian reform is needed and will require new institutional arrangements. Any alternative strategy will have to revise the institutional mechanisms that have been handling land reform thus far. Are the procedures and the institutions that are in place to design and implement land reform adequate and appropriate to the kind of new tasks envisaged? What new farming units and activities are intended, and what post-transfer support will be required to make this agricultural system productive? This paper explores mechanisms appropriate to one kind of agricultural alternative: a vision of a productive, small-scale essentially household farm sector.