Zimbabwe - Context and Land Governance

Zimbabwe’s turbulent history of conflict, dispossession and internal contestation provides essential context to better understand the contemporary political economy of land. The precolonial period was marked by the rise and fall of sophisticated Shona polities [10], including the stone city state of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, which was at its peak between 1200 – 1500 [11]. The Ndebele people entered modern day Zimbabwe around 1840, having themselves been violently displaced during a period of social upheaval in South Africa known as the Mfecane. Ndebele-Shona relations in the second half of the 19th century were dynamic, characterised by a mix of conflict, assimilation and coexistence [12]. The Ndebele under Lobengula entered into agreements with concessionaries and missionaries which were a precursor to the colonisation of the territory by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), established by Cecil John Rhodes in 1890.

Almost immediately the forces recruited by the BSAC went to war to destroy the Ndebele state. By 1893 the Ndebele capital at Bulawayo was destroyed. Two separate uprisings by Ndebele and Shona people followed in 1896, seeking to throw off settler control, but this resistance was crushed by 1897. As the settler state consolidated power, it began the systematic dispossession of many African people, claiming the most fertile and well-watered agricultural land, while forcing the African population into reserves on land with poorer soils and drier conditions in natural regions IV and V. By 1920, 83 Reserves had been created for some 847,000 Africans. Of the 8,74 million ha allocated for African occupation, 1,21 million ha were acknowledged to be “totally unsuitable for human habitation” [13]. Nearly 75% of the land in the reserves was recognised as “marginal for agricultural production” with “an extremely high proportion of the land under the plough… in regions not suited to cropping” [14].

Legislation passed in 1930 formalised wide-ranging land dispossession. A further wave of dispossession took place following World War 2, when the settler government incentivised immigration by white ex-servicemen with offers of farms and financial support. The combination of colonial land grabs and the denial of African political representation accelerated the rise of an increasingly militant, yet internally conflicted African nationalist movement. The intransigence of the settler government, which unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965, and its refusal to address nationalist political demands, propelled the country into a protracted civil war, which would claim more than 20,000 lives before a cease fire in 1979. Two political parties – the original ZAPU and the breakaway ZANU vied for popular support with a promise of radical land reform once they came to power [15].

Zimbabwe finally gained political independence from Britain in 1980 with ZANU PF winning a clear majority in the elections. The Lancaster House constitution entrenched white land and property rights for a period of ten years. A land reform programme was put in place on the basis of the Willing Buyer – Willing Seller (WBWS) principle, in which the state exercised the right of first refusal to purchase land coming onto the market. Britain agreed to meet 50% of the costs of a resettlement programme to buy land from willing sellers and to provide infrastructure for those resettled [16].

Conflict between ZAPU and ZANU accelerated in the early post-independence period. This culminated in the violent repression [17] of largely Ndebele speaking ZAPU aligned communities in Matabeleland, in which thousands of people were killed [18]. This was followed by persistent state neglect of people and infrastructure in the South of the country.

The WBWS based land reform programme met with some initial success, but it soon lost momentum, rapidly falling short of its targets. By 1997, some 71,000 families had been resettled – less than half of the original target figure of 162,000 families. Legislation passed in 1992 empowered the state to designate land for compulsory acquisition with compensation payable at controlled prices. However, legal requirements made expropriation slow and expensive. In 1997 the state listed 1471 farms for compulsory acquisition. However, by the end of the decade the state had reneged and delisted the majority of these properties. A National Consultative Economic Forum was established which set up a land task force. The government convened a new donor conference to try and forge consensus on the land reform programme.
Donors agreed to support an Inception Framework Plan to acquire a million ha of land through a combination of expropriation and WBWS. This resulted in the proposed Land Reform Resettlement Phase 2 (LRRP-2) [19].

By 2000, twenty years after Zimbabwe attained independence, land reform had almost completely stalled. The Zimbabwean economy was in poor shape, following imposition of an economic structural adjustment programme. The ZANU-PF ruling party faced mounting allegations of corruption, which escalated into a crisis of legitimacy [20] as political opposition mounted from independent trade unions, civil society organisations, public sector workers and former combatants. To counter the rising challenge by disgruntled war veterans, in 1997 Parliament approved unbudgeted expenditure of 3% of GDP to provide 60,000 veterans with pay-outs and allowances [21]. 

Against this backdrop, ZANU-PF established a Constitutional Commission to draft a new Constitution for Zimbabwe. The draft was unilaterally amended by the President who introduced ‘corrections’, including a clause enabling the state to ‘compulsorily acquire agricultural land for resettlement’, while obliging Britain as the ‘former colonial power’ to compensate farmers [22]. This draft Constitution was put to a referendum in February 2000 and was rejected by 54.31% of the voters.

This defeat prompted an unrestrained fightback campaign by the ruling party, which immediately amended the 1992 Land Acquisition Act, introducing new clauses enabling expropriation of land without compensation.

These factors coupled with mounting land hunger combined to provide momentum for the so-called Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). This culminated in the confiscation of an estimated 4,500 farms [23]. When the Supreme Court issued a judgment declaring the land occupations illegal and in breach of the Constitution, President Robert Mugabe sanctioned open defiance of the rule of law and the judiciary, characterising judges as “guardians of white racist farmers” [24].

The FTLRP has been described as the largest land reform programme in the 21st century [25]. Analysts are deeply divided on the outcomes of land reform in Zimbabwe. It remains challenging to isolate analysis of land reform from wider processes of authoritarian state capture, economic asset stripping by factional patronage networks and economic indigenisation policies for the principal benefit of local elites and their investment partners.

By 2008, external debt as a share of GDP had risen to 119%. Agricultural exports fell by 50% between 2000-2009. The value of tobacco, the country’s major export cash crop, was down 64% from 2000 levels. Commercial production of maize dropped 76% during the same period. Zimbabwe’s economy was overwhelmed by galloping inflation when the annual inflation rate peaked in November 2008, reaching 89.7 sextillion (10^21) percent [26].

Informal market, photo by Ian Scones (all rights reserved)

Different readings of the FTLRP emerge that provide conflicting narratives about land access and the impact of land reform on rural livelihoods and the economy as a whole. However, it is clear that the FTLRP has brought about a radical change in the agrarian structure. The outcomes of the programme are differentiated. The smallholder A1 schemes have seen success, with a significant number of farmers accumulating, investing, producing food and cash crops like tobacco. However, many of those accessing larger properties through the A2 scheme struggled to progress due with lack of capital. Their access to bank finance has been blocked by lack of certainty concerning leasehold arrangements.

Many accounts foreground a mix of violent seizure, subsequent elite capture and patronage influenced land allocation particularly on the larger A2 farms. These narratives are challenged by researchers who present convincing longitudinal evidence from smallholder studies which make it clear that “elite capture is not the whole story of Zimbabwe’s land reform; nor indeed the dominant one” [27].

Research also highlights ‘collateral damage’ of FTLRP to the livelihoods of many farm workers [28] employed on commercial farms redistributed as part of the A2 scheme [29].  Overall, farm worker livelihoods generally became more precarious, characterised by continued super exploitation and perpetuation of labour tenancy in farm compounds [30]. However there is evidence that some farm workers have been able to access small portions of land to become producers in their own right [31].

Tenure uncertainty and the absence of functioning land administration systems present important challenges in Zimbabwe. 

In the pre-independence era, rural land in Zimbabwe could be divided into four categories:

●  Surveyed farms with freehold title;

●  Land in so called Native Purchase Areas (often in marginal agricultural areas) where small scale black producers could access land under freehold title or long lease;

●  Land in the reserves, later known as Tribal Trust Lands allocated in terms of state approved customary law;

●  State land comprising: 

• State agricultural land leased to companies and individuals; 
• State land set aside for conservation purposes.

Following independence, landowners wishing to sell freehold farmland were required to offer this first to the government. In cases where the government did not want the land for resettlement purposes, it issued “a no present interest certificate” which allowed the owner to sell the land on the open market. “A significant number of farms, totalling well over one million hectares, changed hands in this way, many to senior members of the government and the new black ruling elite” [32].  

Others gained access to leased state land through the Commercial Farm Settlement Scheme in more marginal agricultural areas. Effectively, many of the properties leased in this category were donated, as the state never assessed them to determine rental charges [33].  

The different phases of land reform in Zimbabwe are characterised by differentiated levels of tenure clarity and security.

In the first phase of the programme two principal resettlement models were developed:

●  Model A: Land allocated for homestead, arable and communal grazing in planned resettlement schemes. Tenure was awarded in the form of permits, but there were concerns that these permits conveyed no real tenure security and were open to abuse [34]. 

●  Model B: A collective co-operative model which was poorly supported before being abandoned in the late 1980’s.

In the FTLRP, a revised Model A1 redistributed land to small farmer households through a permit-based form of conditional tenure, while Model A2 distributed land to black commercial farmers by means of conditional leasehold. In both instances the state retained ownership of the land, with powers to reallocate and/or withdraw tenure rights.

During the period of land occupations multiple institutions and centres of power authorised land seizures and approved occupiers. Ironically, with the launch of the FTLRP those with freehold tenure became the most tenure insecure [35].  After the land of 90% of white commercial farmers had been confiscated, the remaining 10% were issued with five-year renewable leases [36].  These conditions have since been relaxed and farmers can obtain 99 years leases (where these are issued). Some black landowners also had their land seized. Some had bought land in the so-called African Purchase Areas under white rule, while other prominent black Zimbabweans associated with opposition political formations were also arbitrarily dispossessed [37].   

A closely fought election resulted in a power sharing agreement and a Government of National Unity in 2009. The agreement recognised land as a critical issue and led to the redrafting of the Constitution of Zimbabwe in a process involving all political parties. The new constitution was subsequently approved by almost 95% of those voting in a national referendum in March 2013. 

The constitution gives the state power to alienate land to persons, through four mechanisms, namely: (i) transfer of ownership, (ii) a grant of lease, (iii) grant of occupation rights and (iv) grant of use rights. Section 292 requires the state to take appropriate measures to give security of tenure to every person lawfully owning or occupying agricultural land.

Section 296 of the Constitution requires the establishment of a Zimbabwe Land Commission. In 2017 the Commission was tasked with establishing who owned and occupied what land in the aftermath of the FTLRP. Reports on the findings of the preliminary audit report have indicated that because there were multiple land allocations by authorities “who were not following laid-down procedures” this created conditions which in some cases have “made it impossible to verify the legal status of genuine farm beneficiaries” [38].  

Given current constraints on institutional capacity and a multiform tenure system, Zimbabwe has to ask what combination of tenure forms can best facilitate production and investment on redistributed land. In this regard a combination of state leasehold and permits is thought to offer the most immediate possibilities [39].

In the first seven years after independence there was a strong commitment to bring about equality of women. A number of laws were passed including the Legal Age of Majority Act and marriage laws to improve the legal status of women’s rights [43].  However, thereafter the state appeared to  withdraw its support for the 1980’s equality-based legal framework which made it “difficult for women to become legitimate recipients of land” [44].  In the communal areas customary law remains the primary determinant of women’s land rights and this frequently places widows and single women in vulnerable positions. Nationally, land and tenure laws were slow to advance women’s secure access to land. Even under the FTLRP ‘offer letters’ or land allocation permits to new ‘settlers’ were mostly issued to men [45].

Currently, Section 17 of the Zimbabwean Constitution of 2013 commits the state to take practical measures to ensure that women have access to resources, including land, on the basis of equality with men. Overall, it would appear that women remain secondary beneficiaries of land reform in Zimbabwe, although they are able to access and inherit land through marriage.

During the CODID-19 lockdown in February 2021, photo by Ian Scones (all rights reserved)

Zimbabwe has a history of displacing communities as a consequence of development projects. In the late 1950’s some 57,000 Tonga people were relocated to make way for the construction of Kariba dam.

The Nuanetsi Bio Diesel project mentioned above threatened the removal of 6000 households – many of whom had occupied the land under the FTLRP. Households living in Marange in Manicaland were given no choice but to relocate more than 100 km from their homes, after diamonds were discovered in the area [50] .  As the state is desperate to attract foreign direct investment (see above), the rights of local communities are likely to be marginalised in cases where public-private investment agreements are reached.  

Sokwanele displaced farm workers, originally published in FLICKR, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license

The author's suggestion for further reading

There is an enormous volume of research on land issues in Zimbabwe which remain highly dynamic. A single Google Scholar search (14 Dec 2020) using the search term “Zimbabwe land reform programme” will yield more than 107,000 results while a search on “Zimbabwe land tenure” yields 76,000 results. One of the most consistent and up to date  sources of information and analysis on land related issues is the Zimbabweland blog written by Ian Scoones who leads a team of Zimbabwean researchers that has been conducting and publishing research on land in Zimbabwe over many years.   There is a wealth of high-quality scholarship to contribute to an in-depth understanding of land issues in Zimbabwe, past and present. We provide links to the work of a few established researchers on history and land related issues in Zimbabwe. These include Jocelyn Alexander, Walter Chambati, Admos Chimwohu, Amanda Hammar, Kirk Helliker, Freedom Mazwi, JoAnn McGregor, Sam Moyo, Gaynor Paradza, Terence Ranger, Brian Raftopolous and Blair Rutherford.

There is also a whole new generation of researchers on the rise. Visit the Sam Moyo African Institute of Agrarian Studies (SMAIAS) for links to new research.