Land Reform in South Africa

Land Reform in South Africa

In South Africa, land is presently not only one of the most defining political and development issues, but also perhaps the most intractable. The continuing racial maldistribution of land will either be resolved through a fundamental restructuring of the government’s land reform programme, or it will be resolved by a fundamental restructuring of property relations by the people themselves. Which direction the country follows depends to a large degree on the urgent and immediate responsiveness of the government to the needs and demands of the country’s 19-million mostly poor, black and landless rural people.