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consultations on wildlife conservancies, forest plantations and on indigenous
forest reserves. In many areas consensus could emerge quickly. Well-planned
participatory processes can be carried out in a limited period of time and
participation and consensus building are therefore not an insurmountable
constraint to speedy action.
The currently proposed land tenure policy which differentiates the land tenure
forms for A1 and A2 resettlement lands should be publicised and continue to
guide administration in the mid term, during a transitional period over the next
three to five years. The tenure policy for A1 farms is based on unifying their
conditions of tenure with that of the communal areas, i.e. providing a form of
‘customary’ tenure for residential and arable land to individuals and group tenure
for common grazing lands. But, where new self-contained A1 plots are in
demand, a program to facilitate conversion should be implemented. The policy
on the forms of land tenure in communal and resettlement areas needs to be
thought through more deeply, along the lines of a decentralised customary tenure
administration system as previously proposed by the Rukuni Commission6.
6.4.2 Allocation of Remaining and Additional Land.
In the short term, the Government should seriously consider implementing the
following recommendations adopted from the Utete Report, particularly those that
enhance equity and allow for the allocation of some larger land sizes in selected
specialist land uses and enterprises in A2 and the remaining LSCF. We are
concerned that the needy stakeholder groups, such as the former farm workers,
women, inhabitants of selected congested communal areas, and the unemployed
urban/peri-uban, have not benefited sufficiently from the land reform, while urban
and other well-off and well-connected groups have benefited disproportionately in
terms of quantity, quality, location, and irrigation of the land they were allocated.
It is urgent that the land which remains unallocated, and additional land which
will become available in the future as a consequence of downsizing of plantations,
estates, conservancies, remaining LSC Farms, and oversized new A2 and A1
farms is used to correct these serious blemishes on the land reform program. A
decision to reserve all the remaining and additional land to these underserved or
left out categories of farmers would be a first step, followed by the design of the
respective targeting rule and transparent implementation mechanisms.
We very much regret that very few former farm workers were resettled in the
reform program, and many of them are now destitute. They also constitute a
valuable resource in agricultural production. In the short term, to help keep this
resource within the farming community, Government should excise pieces of
newly resettled lands, especially those with farm compounds and social services,
and develop these as local authority satellite service centres to cater for the
6
Rukuni Land Commission, 1994. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into appropriate agricultural land
tenure systems. Vol. One: Main report and Vol. Two: Technical reports. Under the Chairmanship of
Proffessor Mandivamba Rukuni. For his Excellency The President of the Republic of Zimbabwe.
October 1994. Government printer, Harare.
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