Progress with different land reform options in South Africa

Abstract

The land reform programme of the South African government has three focus areas, namely restitution of land rights to the victims of forces removals, redistribution of land to the disadvantaged and tenure reform aimed at promoting security of tenure for all. In realising a programme of rapid and effective land reform it is important that all possible options of land transfer to previously disentitled South African should be pursued. This paper briefly describes the different options for land reform in South Africa and discusses the progress made in implementing the land reform programme of the government and each of the options outside the programme. Based on current trends in the land redistribution programme and private land and a number of other assumptions it is estimated that around 0,39 percent of commercial farm land in South Africa could be transferred through a combination of models to less advantaged groups by the end of 1996.