Decolonisation and comparative land reform with a special focus on Africa

Abstract

One of the principles guiding the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 was the need to eradicate colonialism and to ensure the total emancipation of African territories and its peoples. The African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights adopted in 1981 grants all peoples the right to self-determination, through which to freely determine their political status and pursue their social and economic development. The last two African countries to gain independence from apartheid and white minority rule, namely Namibia and South Africa, have taken different approaches to land and tenure reform. The year 2013 marked 100 years since the enactment of the Natives Land Act 27 of 1913 in South Africa that led to the indigenous majority population having access to only 13% of the land while the white minority had access to 87% of the land. The year 1913 is also the current cut-off point for recognising land claims. The South African government has recently taken initiatives aimed at improving the pace of land reform, which currently stand at 5% of the land being transferred to black South Africans against a target of delivering 30% by 2014. While the government has called for patience in this regard, some urgent intervention is required, lest South Africans lose patience and undertake land invasions on a sustained basis.     

Indigenous Peoples in Southern Africa

Abstract

This article considers the complex cases of indigenous peoples in three Commonwealth countries in southern Africa: Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. In terms of national-level policy, the governments of these countries do not differentiate indigenous peoples from the rest of their populations. They do, however, have programmes aimed at assisting ‘marginalised’ or ‘disadvantaged’ communities. In this article, three main dimensions related to indigenous peoples’ rights in southern Africa are discussed: national policies, indigenous peoples’ rights, and rights to representation; land and resource rights, including rights to water; and language and gender rights. The paper concludes with an assessment of where indigenous peoples stand today in southern Africa.     

African research and development surveys: Highlights from the South African success story

ABSTRACT

Science and technology have a major role to play in current and future developments on the African continent as a whole. With the vast array of developmental challenges, current thinking needs to be expanded, so that technologies provide increased and enhanced solutions, such that African scientists produce an African response to the very many shared challenges affecting Africa – both as individual nations and as regards African people collectively. Key to developing an integrated science and technology network, within and across nations, is firstly to understand the extent of research and development (R&D) currently undertaken within individual territories and on the continent as a whole. In light of this, the article examines the value and importance of national surveys of research and experimental development undertaken in Africa. Within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), many member states now have dedicated departments overseeing state science and technology (S&T) development initiatives. South Africa has the most developed science and technology system on the continent. In recent years, other SADC countries like Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia have initiated projects to measure R&D activities within their territories. Despite this, further North, R&D measurement on the continent is uncommon, both as a result and as a cause of underdevelopment.

The article explores the limited data from selected African R&D surveys in an attempt to understand measurement issues that exist and to detail the value and importance of mapping S&T systems and their applications to developmental issues in Africa. In countries like Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, where S&T systems exist, effective means of measurement need to be established, so that the power of these systems can be harnessed, shared and exploited to benefit the African people. To this end, the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (ASTII) initiative was set up at a meeting in Addis Ababa with the aim of delivering a survey of these countries’ R&D output and potential. This is eagerly awaited by the African S&T community.

At the forefront of African R&D measurement is the South African national R&D survey, administered by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). Being an established survey, the South African team is often called upon by other African nations to support the setting up of surveys. The HSRC also trains visiting African scientists in the delivery of accurate and reliable R&D survey data. This article will, for the first time, present detailed results of the most recent South African national R&D survey (2008/2009), together with a trend analysis of historic South African R&D surveys.     

Property and constitutional order: Land tenure reform and the future of the African state

The debate over land law reform in Africa has been framed asa referendum on the market – that is, as a debate pittingadvocates of the growth-promoting individualization of propertyrights against those who call for protecting the livelihoodsand subsistence rights of small farmers. This article arguesthat the prospect of land law reform also raises a complex bundleof constitutional issues. In many African countries, debatesover land law reform are turning into referenda on the natureof citizenship, political authority, and the future of the liberalnation state itself. The article describes alternative landreform scenarios that are currently under debate, and identifiesthe constitutional implications of each. The practical salienceof the issues is illustrated through reference to land reformpolitics in Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, South Africa,and Tanzania.     

Voting rights for nationals of the Southern African Development Community countries living in member states

ABSTRACT

The right to vote remains one of the most critical ways in which individuals influence government. However, the disenfranchisement of certain classes of people – notably non-citizen residents – is the norm in Africa, whereas many countries in Europe recognise the right of non-citizen residents to vote as a key element in the continent's political integration. In the Southern African Development Community (SADC), where the political integration of the region is recognised as an essential contributor to economic integration, the question of extra-national forms of regional citizenship and voting rights does not receive sufficient attention. This article looks at SADC and selected countries within SADC, to determine whether laws and treaties can be amended and developed to broaden the scope of citizenship and extend the right to vote to non-citizen residents.     

African modernities and the critical reappropriation of indigenous knowledges: Towards a polycentric global epistemology

ABSTRACT

While the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development (AU/NEPAD) strives for both plurilateralism and regionalism, there are ideological and practical conditions that challenge the feasibility of a fully fledged regional integration institution in Africa. This article examines the AU/NEPAD in relation to Africa's ideological back-loading, while it explores how the programme reconciles Western-dominated economic plurilateralism with Africa's developmental regionalism. It highlights the ideological changes that helped with the modernisation of Western countries and how these developments become a challenge to Africa's economic development efforts. Africa has always been an ideological back-loader and a delayed integrator into global interdependence. During the mid-20^th century, at the time Western countries (in particular Western European countries) were adopting regionalism, Africa was engaged in the same phenomenon for political and economic independence. While the economic crisis of the mid-20^th century following the Second World War (WW2) enabled the industrialised countries to adopt embedded liberalism for socioeconomic development, at decolonisation Africa sought to espouse what turned out to be the dependency paradigm as the economic development strategy for Africa. In the 21st century, developed regions are transcending regionalism and gearing towards plurilateralism while most African leaders remain fixated in traditional regional integration on the continent. As the neoliberal ideology dominates the contemporary international political economy of the 21^st century, albeit questionably, Africa's politico-socioeconomic realities are also premised on the same embedded liberalism. However, economic plurilateralism by industrialised countries with Africa challenges efforts towards regional integration on the continent. It would seem that the AU/NEPAD provides a viable compromise between developmental regionalism and economic plurilateralism on the continent.     

Explaining South Africa’s land reform policy failure through its instruments: the emergence of inclusive agricultural business models

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to explain the emergence of South African inclusive agricultural business models in relation to the land reform policy. We demonstrate that in South Africa such policy instruments linking small-scale and large-scale farmers respond to endogenous dynamics linked to the failure of its land reform policy. We study the land reform policy change induced by its policy instruments. Indeed, introducing the market as the preferred means to implement land reform caused unanticipated side effects, creating constant pressure for change that such inadequate instrument exerted on the set policy objectives during the first phase of policy implementation. After cohabitating uneasily with rather antagonistic policy goals, policy instruments ultimately led to a change in policy objectives, shifting from supporting small-scale black subsistence agriculture to targeting a class of emerging farmers committed to commercial agriculture. Inclusive Business Model’s policy instruments were subsequently identified as the best fit to achieve the re-adjusted policy goal.     

Civil society participation in regional integration in Africa: A comparative analysis of ECOWAS,SADC, and the EAC

There is an undeniable trend towards civil society participation in virtually all issue-areas of global governance, yet civil society participation varies widely among international organisation (IOs). While this trend has inspired a voluminous academic literature, empirically-based, comparative studies of IO-civil society interaction in Africa remain largely absent. This article therefore examines civil society participation in three African subregional organisations – the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). What are the factors that have made regional integration in ECOWAS relatively more people-driven, and that have thus far hindered effective civil society participation in the affairs of SADC and the EAC? Support from member states, allies in the respective organisation’s bureaucracy, and characteristics of civil society itself, the research shows, affect participation in regional integration, with the latter aspect apparently more salient in SADC and the EAC than in ECOWAS.     

Social cohesion for the unfinished business of land reform in South Africa

Abstract

This article aims to discuss social cohesion as an alternative instrument to address the ever dragging land question in South Africa. Although there are various activities that have been undertaken and policy programmes that have been proposed, all those initiatives have not been able to completely translate land reform policy into practice as intended. Other than recognising the ‘willing seller-willing buyer’ policy which appears not to have been internalised by the stakeholders concerned, this article also presents a transformative approach for both white land owners and black emerging farmers to work together in a tolerant and amicable manner. The most critical step that is required for land reform in the whole country is a public consultation process for government to be able to engage with all parties and to put a list of informed alternatives on the table for discussion. Obviously, that includes the willing seller willing buyer policy. Based on the outcomes of such discussions, the government has to play a mediation role to heal the racial division caused by the Natives Land Act of 1913. In short, this discussion presents social cohesion to heal the past without land owners perceiving transformation policies as apartheid in reverse.     

African renaissance and spirituality

Abstract

The African Renaissance is now more than just an idea . . . In South Africa itself, ten years of democracy have ripened our discussions and deepened our insights. We are less starry‐eyed and euphoric, and more cautious; less optimistic but more hopeful. We are beginning to understand much better just how much South Africa is part of Africa, as we are beginning to understand that ‘Africa’ is much more than a geographical connotation. Africa is its mountains and rivers, its valleys and high places; its sweeping savannas and its dense forests; its rich soil and its intimidating deserts. But Africa is Africa mostly in her children wherever they may dwell: in the wisdom of her elders and the courage of her youth, the strength of her mothers and the dedication of her fathers. Being an African is not simply a question of sharing the land, it is sharing the fate of Africa. We have come to understand Africa not just as a place, but as a manifestation of a vision; not just the land that we come from, but the destiny that we are called to fulfil.

Africa has a rich diversity of spiritualities and proffers a deep well from which we can all drink. Within the context of the African Renaissance we are called to look anew at those values, and see how, within our new situation they could contribute to the foundation and the fabric, the content and the practical implementation of the African Renaissance for the good of all our people.     

Private game farming and its social consequences in post-apartheid South Africa: contestations over wildlife,property and agrarian futures

Spaces of privatised wildlife production, in the form of game farms, private nature reserves and other forms of wildlife-oriented land use, are an increasingly prominent feature of the South African countryside. Whilst there is a well-developed literature on the social impacts of state-run protected areas, the outcomes of privatised wildlife production have thus far received little attention. It is argued here that the socio-spatial dynamics of the wildlife industry, driven by capitalist imperatives related to the commodified production of nature and ‘wilderness’, warrant both in-depth investigation in their own right, and contextualisation in terms of broader processes of agrarian change locally as well as globally. The growing influence of trophy hunting and the wildlife industry on private land can be seen as a significant contributing factor to processes of deagrarianisation that are mirrored in other parts of the African continent and elsewhere. In South Africa, these developments and their impacts on the livelihoods of farm dwellers take on an added dimension in the context of the country's efforts to implement a programme of post-apartheid land reform. Two decades after the formal end of apartheid, contestations over land rights and property ownership remain live and often unresolved. This theme issue explores these dynamics on private land partly or wholly dedicated to wildlife production, with special emphasis on two South African provinces: KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.     

The SADC organ for politics,defence and security: Challenges for regional community building

The launch of the SADC Organ for Politics, Defence and Security in June 1996 brings to a close a process that started with the transformation of SADCC into SADC in 1992. It also indicates the start of a new process to build and maintain security in the region through a formal institution and the building of the structure and institution itself. A question which arises is whether the Organ will provide the conditions and mechanisms necessary to establish and develop a security community in the region as envisaged in the SADC Treaty. This article examines and evaluates the SADC Organ with the aim of providing an initial analysis of its potential to realise the SADC Treaty's vision of Southern Africa as a secure, peaceful, development community. It would seem at this stage that although the potential exists for the Organ to develop into an efficient and active institution of SADC, the role of personalities and force of habit inhibit the realisation of the Organ's goals and objectives.     

Mining with a ‘Vuvuzela’: reconfiguring artisanal mining in Southern Zimbabwe and its implications to rural livelihoods

The rural landscape of Zimbabwe has dramatically changed in the last decade. Zimbabwe inherited a racially biased land ownership pattern at independence in 1980 and 20 years on efforts by the state to address the colonial land imbalances have been largely unsuccessful. In 2000 the Zimbabwe government embarked on a controversial rapid land redistribution exercise that saw vast tracts of land previously owned by white commercial farmers taken over and distributed to mostly black Zimbabweans. Some authors have argued that there is no single story of the Fast Track Land Reform and Resettlement programme because of the myths and realities spread by the media. It is important to note that what happened in one province might not be similar to the other. Rural dwellers in the countryside had for years depended on agrarian livelihoods and the fact that more land had been availed by the state meant better livelihoods. However, this article argues that in spite of a widened horizon to pursue agrarian activities many people have actually drifted away from on-farm to off-farm livelihoods. This is true in the case of southern Zimbabwe where a large number of rural dwellers have chosen artisanal gold mining as a pathway in realising a livelihood. This article therefore focuses on the expansion of artisanal gold mining in southern Zimbabwe; particularly in southern Matabeleland. Using fieldwork as a method of data gathering, the article unravels the development of artisanal mining in this region and how it has been reconfigured after the hosting of the Soccer World Cup in South Africa 2010. In particular it shows how the metal detector technology (the Vuvuzela) availed by the hosting of the Soccer World Cup has found its way to the region and changed the gold panning process. Conclusions drawn from a detailed PhD study revealed that a significant number of southern Zimbabwe gold panners have adopted the metal detector technology as a way of expanding their trade.     

Africa and its Diaspora: The principal reciprocal benefits to be derived from the amended Constitutive Act of the African Union

Abstract

Under article 3(q) (Objectives) of the Protocol on Amendments to the Constitutive Act of the African Union, we read the following: ‘invite and encourage the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our continent, in building the African Union (AU)’. According to the AU, ‘The African Diaspora are peoples of African descent and heritage outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and who remain committed to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union’. Not only is this posture entirely consistent with the African development agenda and Renaissance, but it is also congruent with the recent and first-ever AU African Diaspora Summit which was convened on Friday, 25 May 2012, at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg. This is so because the Summit provided us with an excellent opportunity to continue to reflect on, and engage with, issues relevant to the development of the continent and, by extension, its multilingual and globally dispersed Diaspora. In this public lecture, it is argued that the current Amendment to the Constitutive Act of the AU in which the African Diaspora is now considered the sixth Region of the AU – an Amendment which has not yet been ratified by the requisite number of African states and one which might still be in need of some degree of disambiguation – provides the framework within which some fundamental and reciprocal benefits can be derived from an ongoing interaction between Africa and its Diaspora – especially its Older or Historic Diaspora. In essence, it is my contention that the principal reciprocal benefits that can accrue from this interaction between Africa and its Diaspora might best be captured in the language of pan-Africanisation and re-Africanisation respectively.     

The use of technology and leadership in enhancing strategic cooperative policing within the SADC region

ABSTRACT

The globalisation processes driving development and the transnational nature of crime require the collaboration of police within regions using sophisticated technology to combat crime. This article examines the role of technology and leadership in enhancing cooperative policing. Following a successful safety strategy during the 2010 Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) Soccer World Cup (SWC) tournament in South Africa, the aim of the article is to demonstrate how technology and strategic leadership contributed to the success of this event. The research conducted consisted of an extensive review of existing research publications on the state of policing in southern Africa; and a conference presentation by Lieutenant-General Pruis about policing the SWC from which key policing lessons have been extracted. The literature survey revealed the challenges of police forces and policing in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as being primarily resource constraints, and socio-political environments that are not always conducive to effective policing. Conclusions drawn are that some of the lessons from the SWC, such as planning, budgeting, strategic leadership, regional and international cooperation of security personnel, community involvement, an informed media strategy and the use of technology to support these processes, can be replicated in regional policing operations.     

Democracy,African intellectuals and African Renaissance

Abstract

This article argues that democracy is a prerequisite for the African Renaissance. The role of African intellectuals is crucial in making the dream of the African Renaissance come true. This article revisits the discourse on the African Renaissance, its history and content before dealing with the issue of democracy. Democracy is closely related to human rights and development and is a sine qua non for the African Renaissance. The current discourse on the African Renaissance is not new. The first international conference on the African Renaissance was held in Dakar, Senegal, from 26 February to 2 March 1996 where African intellectuals gathered to celebrate the works of Professor Cheikh Anta Diop, ten years after his death. The theme of the conference was ‘African Renaissance in the Third Millennium’. The first African Renaissance Conference in South Africa took place from 28 to 29 September 1998. Thabo Mbeki ‐ then, Deputy Pesident of South Africa ‐ read the keynote address on ‘Giving the Renaissance content: Objectives and definitions’. This article complements efforts at redefining the roles of African intellectuals in fostering democracy through a conscious application of the framework of African Renaissance.     

The land question,land grabbing and agriculture in Africa

Abstract

Land grabbing has emerged as a form of production and export of food and biofuels in the Third World by enterprises owned by foreign governments and business entities. Large tracts of land are either leased or sold to these enterprises cheaply by the state, usually with the argument that such land is empty and needs to be put to good use. But land grabbing dates back to colonial times, thus substantially shaping the political economy of such countries as South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe. It is therefore fitting at this conjuncture to discuss land grabbing in its holistic and historical context, noting that smallholding agriculture juxtaposed against large scale commercial farming will for a long time define agrarian class struggles, the character of the state and the project of nation building.

Over the last decade or so land distribution in Zimbabwe by the Mugabe government was assumed to be heading for disaster. Recent information, however, reveals that productivity has improved, tobacco exports are improving and smallholders accessing affordable farm input and markets while getting a fair reward for their labour behave no differently from large scale commercial farmers. In the final analysis the issue of equity and poverty elimination needs to be central in addressing the land and agriculture question in Africa.     

What Explains President Joseph Kabila’s Quest for a Third Term until Pressured to Reluctantly Relinquish Power,late in 2018?

Abstract

The era of Congolese political, socio-economic instability that has affected the central African region has returned, yet again. Nearly two decades after Joseph Kabila was installed as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo by the Southern African Development community (SADC), at the height of the regional central African war, following the assassination of his father, Laurent Desire Kabila, he has not shown any willingness to relinquish power. This is even so after the lapse of his constitutional mandates in December 2016, secured in 2006 and 2011. This continued reign, which is dependent on the repressive use of force by the state, has elicited spirited attempts by the political opposition, including the influential Catholic Church, calling for his immediate resignation. In response, the state has unleashed repression, which has resulted in fatalities and uprooted communities, resulting also in forced migration that destabilised the Great lakes sub-region. This article argues that the state reconstruction of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the hurried departure of Mobutu Sese Seko, engineered by Laurent Kabila, and his son Joseph, has failed to take root, resulting in sub-regional instability that has engulfed, not only the Great lakes region, but also southern Africa as a whole.     

Lesotho's interactions with South Africa and regional organisations in Southern Africa

Media reports alleged in late 2012 that South Africa was treating Lesotho ‘worse than … under apartheid’. To test that premise, this article contrasts Lesotho's regional and bilateral interactions during the colonial and apartheid eras with present relationships. It reviews bilateral and regional factors that impact Lesotho, emphasising Lesotho's roles in the Southern African Customs Union, the Common Monetary Area, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as well as diverse bilateral transactions with South Africa. Lesotho's experiences with SADC economic, political and security operations are evaluated. Whether a mutually beneficial relationship with South Africa is replacing the prior hegemonic pattern is questioned, especially after the peaceful transfer of power in 2012 to Lesotho's opposition parties. Dual citizenship, open borders, an economic union and even the remote possibility of political fusion are discussed. Finally, the article addresses how Basotho view border issues, why they have reservations about regionalism and political amalgamation, and why commitment to separate Lesotho statehood persists.     

Gender equality,Pan-Africanism and the diaspora

ABSTRACT

In 2003, the same year that the African Union (AU) officially recognised a role for the African diaspora in the future of continental Africa, it also adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, a document which seeks to enhance women's human rights across the Union. These official actions by this body, representing the vision of a more unified Africa, marks a new stage in a history of interactions, conversations and collaborations between Africa and its diaspora, as well as a renewed commitment to gender equity on the continent. This paper examines the feminist tradition within Pan-Africanism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the developments in relation to gender equality with the emergence of the new women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The United Nations’ Declaration of the Decade for Women heralded a new phase in the movement for gender equality in the world. These developments, however, are taking place within a context of neo-liberal globalisation, which has had many negative impacts on the peoples of the African diaspora. While it has contributed to the creation of some new millionaires of colour, it has also ruined the agricultural base of many economies, destroyed manufacturing (including indigenous crafts and production systems) and reduced the economic options open to most of our countries – unless they are oil and mineral-producing states. This article concludes with recommendations for greater South – South collaboration on issues of gender equality, including the production and dissemination of audio-visual materials to challenge the power of the globalised US media and its gendered images.