ABSTRACT
The Fast-Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) sought to speed up Zimbabwe’s land redistribution process by transferring up to five million hectares of white-owned commercial farming land to marginalized African farmers. FTLRP’s theory of change was based on restorative justice. White-owned farms were acquired without compensation. By 2014, FTLRP had resettled approximately 180,000 smallholder families and 45,000 medium- to large-scale commercially oriented farmers onto land previously owned by 6,000 white farmers. A key but unplanned feature of FTLRP was land invasions by aspiring beneficiaries, often led by war veterans and traditional authorities. Occupation of holdings took place without the benefit of clear land tenure policies or formal rules. Beneficiaries took control of the pace of resettlement and parcel allocation where and when they could. Confidence on the part of beneficiaries in their own agency lent direction and social dynamism to the program. Beneficiary investments in agriculture, land use and livelihoods reshaped the agrarian economy and rural landscape. Investments continue to take place despite continuing uncertainty about tenure arrangements. The land needs of women, who for the most part did not participate in the crucially important early land invasions, were not properly taken into account by program designers.
