Dr Clement Chipenda

The South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Social Policy recently held an insightful webinar reflecting on Zimbabwe's enduring land questions. In his reflection, Postdoctoral Fellow in the DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in Social Policy, Dr Clement Chipenda of the College of Graduate Studies, focused on the Second Republic under the leadership of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Chipenda used a decades-old land question metaphor to describe Zimbabwe's agrarian dynamics. The analysis was based on the intellectual contribution of Sam Moyo, which needs to be considered when dealing with post-colonial land reform. Chipenda remarked: "The land issue in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe has remained a challenge. The issue centres around the dynamics of power and economic interests, which further compromise the interests of different stakeholders."

For Chipenda, Moyo's perspective highlighted a crucial contribution to the issue of land reform. "He was a pioneer in providing an extensive, empirically grounded, and theoretically rich evaluation of Zimbabwe's fast-tracked land reform programme at a time when it was unfashionable and highly controversial to do so." He added: "Moyo's intellectual contribution to the land question is within the agrarian context of the African continent. His pioneering work in the book titled The Land Question in Zimbabwe (1995), is crucial in understanding Zimbabwe's land question."

Chipenda further reflected on Moyo’s argument that Zimbabwe's land question was multi-dimensional and had to be understood from five perspectives: land distribution, land tenure, land utilisation, land administration and land adjudication. He stated: "Moyo also argued that resolving the land question would have positive economic dimensions as it would broaden accumulation from below while simultaneously resolving challenges of social reproduction. In addition, it would allow economic empowerment while deepening democracy."

"Emmerson Mnangagwa advocated a progressive new dispensation, which meant a break from the past and the emergence of a new people-centred governance regime," explained Chipenda. He further explained that Mnangagwa presented himself as a reformer, committed to economic transformation and improving livelihoods. However, Chipenda asserted that the new dispensation has since adopted new socio-economic and political policies, underpinned mainly by neo-liberal and pro-capitalist trajectories. According to him, the agrarian sector has been no exception.

He noted that the emphasis in recent years has been on transforming resettled farmers into productive entrepreneurs in a highly polarised environment, which is characterised by threats of repossessing under-utilised land and reallocating it to potential beneficiaries of the country's ever-expanding land waiting list. As he concluded, Chipenda acknowledged that concurrently, the Zimbabwean government has implemented initiatives and commitments to transform the country's agrarian sector.

* By Hanli Wolhuter, Communication and Marketing Specialist and Musa Buthelezi, Intern, College of Graduate Studies