Overall Objective

Farms acquired threw through land reform are used by beneficiaries in a productive and sustainable way to contribute towards poverty alleviation and local economy development.

Summary

Access to land combined with effective land use and livelihood improvement projects has the potential to bring significant improvement in the lives of the poorest. There are few alternatives for many in the Limpopo Province which has 89% of its population in rural areas, 46% unemployment, very low levels of education and no hope of large scale formal sector investment and job creation.

As the land redistribution and restitution programmes have begun to deliver more land the challenge of providing effective post-settlement support has become more important. Land use failures in some projects have denied beneficiaries the hoped for improvements in their lives and the more dramatic failures have made news headlines, discrediting the land reform programme. Despite a number of efforts government post-settlement support remains largely inadequate and is often inappropriate.

Nkuzi Development Association is an NGO with a strong track record in securing land rights of the poor and landless. Nkuzi has played a central role in the settlement of many of the land claims that have been settled with the return of land in Limpopo Province. Nkuzi has also assisted others to get land through redistribution and assisted farm dwellers to get land of their own through negotiations with land owners. Over the last five years Nkuzi has been implementing a project to provide land use and livelihood support to communities that have received land. This has helped to ensure that there are some successful projects happening on land acquired.

    

Nkuzi is seeking support to build on its existing experience by implementing a project aimed at developing and promoting appropriate models of land use and livelihood improvement within two land reform projects that have received land.

The government land redistribution programme has failed to deliver at anywhere near the promised and expected scale. Less than 5% of agricultural land has been redistributed by 2007 despite projections of 30% made in the RDP document. The land restitution process is also going at a very slow pace with only 52 land claims settled with the return of land in Limpopo Province out of an estimated 5,800 claims lodged.

Many of the redistribution projects and restitution cases that have been settled have not been successful in improving the livelihoods of beneficiaries. Inappropriate project designs imposed by Department of Land Affairs officials and consultants have failed to recognize and build on the skills of participants. Business plans drawn up by consultants have tended to promote commercial farming models that participants neither understand nor aspire to. Agricultural extension is highly inefficient in most parts of Limpopo Province, often promotes inappropriate models of agriculture and tends to be top down with little respect for the experience of the producer.

Land use failures in some projects have denied beneficiaries the hoped for improvements in their lives and the more dramatic failures have made news headlines, discrediting the land reform programme. Post-settlement units within the Regional Land Claims Commission offices are under staffed with little capacity to meet all the beneficiary needs, various programmes of the Department of Agriculture have failed to deliver the necessary settlement support to land reform beneficiaries.

Apart from technical land use skills deficits some of the most common and serious problems afflicting land reform beneficiaries are related to poor organizational management, inadequate financial control, failures to clarify individual land rights within community and challenges of running a community enterprise. The recent trend towards 'partnering' restitution beneficiaries with 'strategic partners' does little to enable the beneficiaries.

Finally, the recent escalation in global food prices has placed further strains on poor communities, with many plummeting further into the depths of poverty. At Nkuzi we remain committed to advocating for the implementation of a coordinated, well resourced, progressive land reform programme that promotes the upliftment and empowerment of poor rural communities.

 

Project Objectives

This project aims to promote sustainable livelihoods within land reform projects that Nkuzi works with. There will be an emphasis on land use, but other forms of production for livelihood improvement will not be excluded.

The project has four main components.

• Facilitate support to livelihood improvement projects in two communities.
• Promote and build skills in appropriate agricultural practices.
• Facilitate the establishment of clear individual producer rights within groups and effective financial and organization management systems.
• Lobbying for support and resources from the relevant government departments and other potential support agencies.

Critical needs that have emerged from Nkuzi's livelihood work over the past five years have been: conflict resolution; establishing clear rights for individuals and production units within and in relation to the group as a whole; having clear financial and management arrangements in place. To address this Nkuzi aims to encourage more individual production, where appropriate, with clear arrangements that assure the producer that they will control and benefit from their own production. At the same time the community that owns the land needs to benefit from the land through arrangements such as leases with those who are producing. Management and conflict resolution skills also need to be provided.

In some cases of high value capital intensive production strategic partners are needed to bring in management expertise and required operating capital. In such cases Nkuzi encourages and assists to ensure a clear procedure is used to get such strategic partners, ensuring a good deal for the communities and protection of the community assets, primarily the land. In some cases Nkuzi has assisted communities in obtaining the assistances highly skilled attorneys to provide legal advice and assistance on a pro bono basis. .

Nkuzi believes that the responsibility for providing agricultural and other post-settlement support should lie with the relevant government departments. It is also not feasible for Nkuzi to try to provide for all such needs, especially with more land regularly becoming available. Therefore a key aspect of the project is to engage with the relevant government departments, lobbying for the required support to be provided and promoting appropriate methodologies.

Two project officers are dedicated to ensuring the success of the organizational interventions. The decision to focus on six communities is in recognition that communities face a range of complex challenges when attempting to succeed on newly acquired land. These include: sorting out tenure rights for large groups of beneficiaries; ensuring that the rights of marginalized groups including women, youth and the disabled benefit from the production and any other opportunities on the land; and the adoption of production choices that fit the interests and aspirations of the group but also are not detrimental to the environment in which the production is happening. Focus on two communities will allow in-depth probing and support on these and other issues. One of the outcomes of the support and interventions provided by Nkuzi will be a set of lessons learnt and analysis of the strengths and weakness of our approach.