ABSTRACT
Introduction On coming to power in 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) inherited a slow growing economy, widespread poverty and high and rising levels of unemployment. It was faced with the challenge of fostering a new socio-economic environment that would enable those individuals in the former labour reserve economy to participate in the modern industrial economy. Initially, the government’s efforts to restructure the economy were guided by its Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). The RDP base document (ANC 1994) outlined an ambitious land reform programme that would serve as the driving force of a programme of rural restructuring and development. RDP would inter alia redress the injustices caused by past land policies, supply both residential and productive land for the poorest section of the rural population and help raise incomes and productivity through the provision of support services to build the economy by generating broad-based employment and increases in rural incomes. The majority of South Africa’s poor live in rural areas. The poverty rate (the percentage of individuals classified as poor) is about 72 per cent, compared with 28 per cent in urban areas (Woolard and Leibbrandt 2001). For many years, the white commercial farming areas of the country, which contain the majority of the rural population, have been in economic decline. These areas are increasingly characterized by high levels of unemployment, a vulnerable farm worker population and rural dormitory towns that lack economic opportunities (Anderson 1996; May 2000; Torres et al. 2000). The situation has worsened since 1994 with the withdrawal of state funding from the agricultural sector (Lincoln 1998; Mather 2000). This chapter explores the effectiveness of the land reform programme in improving the livelihoods of eight groups of land reform beneficiaries situated in the Northern Cape Province. The groups received land in the late 1990s through the restitution and redistribution elements of the programme. The first section of this chapter provides a summary of South Africa’s land and agrarian policies over the last 100 years, with particular emphasis on the workings of the ANC’s land reform programme. The next gives an overview of the Northern Cape,
outlining some of its key characteristics and emphasizing the progress that has been made in implementing the land reform programme there. This is followed by a description of the approach used to collect the socio-economic data, along with a description of the livelihoods framework which shaped the approach and interpretation. The next section describes the findings pertaining to the eight land reform groups and the key factors that have constrained black people from developing their land productively. The final section concludes the chapter and makes some policy recommendations.
