Highlights of the research

Main conclusions

Utility of territorial analysis
A territorial analysis of land occupation and land claims can provide a practical basis for land reform strategies.  The case study in Medio Sao Francisco in Brazil reveals an immense diversity of land use and land users, and that despite the popular image and rhetorical discourse of land reform in Brazil which emphasises the need for redistribution of underutilised commercial farmland to the landless poor, there is a widespread need for systematic tenure regularisation, and for restitution of community land which has been illegally alienated in order to secure the livelihoods and development opportunities for rural communities in danger of losing their rights. The Area Land Reform Initiative (ALRI) approach in Makhado, South Africa demonstrates the sheer scale and extent of land restitution claims within a single municipality, the positive and negative potential impacts on employment and the economy that land reform could have, and the importance of developing effective and equitable private sector partnerships with land restitution claimants. The other cases studied reveal a more limited significance of land occupation by land reform groups relative to existing patterns of family and commercial scale farming.

The case studies undertaken show that in many cases administrative units are often too small to enable the coherent integration of land reforms with economic development. An effective territorial approach, although of course decentralised, may often need to encompass several neighbouring municipalities to enable a fuller picture of the place and impacts of land reform in the context of broader economic trends.

Area focused analysis of land markets and market trends can illuminate the extent to which markets may be useful in assisting distributive land reform. This perspective helped to explain why market based land transfers had been successful in Elliot district, South Africa, but the market trends here, and in Medio Sao Francisco in Brazil (where large areas cannot be legally transacted because they are in fact public lands illegally occupied by landlords and entrepreneurs) also indicate the limitations of reliance on this approach in future. Examining the economic development impacts of land reform programmes at a territorial scale also demonstrate their potential and limitations. In Elliot district in Eastern Cape South Africa, land reforms show some impacts on employment, but not as much as may have been hoped and action to create off farm jobs will be needed. In all cases, the research found that improved land access promises benefits for poor people’s livelihood strategies, but there are problems in linking land transfers to follow-up development support.

Taking a sub-regional, area based or territorial approach in itself does not provide a magic bullet to solve development problems, but it provides a more fine grained view than sectoral and centralised perspectives.  To ensure that land reforms can contribute to sustainable territorial development, these processes need to be informed by an understanding of territorial dynamics, power relations and historical trajectories of the different social groups and places that compose rural territories.

Implementation of land reforms on a territorial scale
The case studies give a clear idea of what land access programmes have been achieving in a broader territorial context, document the innovations underway and the constraints these face. Numerical data on land transfers reveals little of the real benefits whereas systematic field assessment of land access projects and focused discussion with the community level actors engaged in the case study areas reveals that key complementary support programmes are still lacking. Where innovative interventions to address this problem are underway (as in the examples studied), this type of empirical research can inform prioritisation and policy development. 

The case studies undertaken demonstrate that a territorialised approach to the planning of land access programmes:

• enables better targeting and planning for land acquisition
• facilitates improved serviced delivery and agricultural service support to land reform communities, and better prioritisation of scarce resources e.g. for infrastructural support, location and design of health, education and marketing facilities
• can cater for the diversity of social demand for land access, including from groups dependent on collective access and control to a variety of types of natural resources, such as pasture, woodlands, and wetlands
• can support the development of shared platforms whereby diverse social groups can debate and agree on shared visions and practical priorities to help steer government interventions.

Role of social movements and social capital
Social movements were found to be the key actors in territorial development planning fora in Brazil, and are key advocates for a more decentralised approach to land reform in South Africa. Only a limited degree of innovation is possible without them, but in South Africa they are historically weaker and more reliant on external support. As a consequence, government needs to invest in providing an enabling environment in which these actors can engage with others in development planning. However the “bridging social capital” which provides the glue between different social groups and organisations, and which is being generated by investment in participatory territorial development in Brazil and to a degree by the integrated development planning (IDP) processes in South Africa,  does not necessarily extend to the poorest groups, in cases where those seeking land access or secure tenure as a means of subsistence and  livelihood improvement remain a minority.
 
The research identified a need for investment in capacity building for community based groups and rural social organisations to enable adequate participation in planning. Such investment is currently almost entirely absent in rural South Africa, and without sufficient downward reach to the rural poor in Brazil, although being addressed through popular education programmes.

Institutional issues
All of the case studies demonstrate the need for better coordination of land reforms with agricultural support. Brazil’s territorial development initiative demonstrates how, in principle,  this can come about, by linking across the different programmes of the Agrarian Development Ministry (MDA), and by engaging with state government and civil society programmes within a common framework, in which collegiate local bodies determine priorities and appropriate mechanisms for securing land access.

A first hurdle to be overcome in adopting a territorial approach to land reform is coordination within the agrarian sector and alignment of land access and agricultural development programmes and services within a common territorial approach and framework. In South Africa land and agricultural programmes are managed by different departments, with different modus operandi, albeit under the same Ministry. In Brazil, the Agrarian Development Ministry (MDA) is the primary authority responsible for rural development and delivers support services to family sector farmers and land access programmes though different agencies.  Although as a result of the territorial development programme these activities are increasingly aligned, centralised planning within the different agencies of MDA still persists. Moreover, there is a separate Ministry of Agriculture which supports the commercial farming sector through sectoral, crop and commodity based programmes, which does not as yet form part of the territorial development equation. 

However a greater challenge lies in aligning resource allocation and planning by different sectors and levels of government within a common territorial framework. In Brazil, mechanisms are being put in place to align federal, sectoral and state government policy and programming with demand in civil society, but participation by municipal government is relatively weak, there is at best only partial stakeholder buy in to the new territorial structures, which lack legal and resource power that resides legally with municipal government, and this situation risks undermining the sustainability of the approach.

In Brazil, although Federal government’s territorial development programme has created a limited opportunity for participatory budgeting for small scale infrastructure provision to support agricultural livelihoods, legal and institutional mechanisms for implementation rely on the collaboration of local or state government which is not always forthcoming. Although an enabling national governmental framework for social movements to participate in territorial planning is clearly present in Brazil, this does not as yet foster effective local government or private sector engagement, and despite the engagement of social movements, does not automatically give voice to the poorest groups, including many long established land reform communities and social minorities enduring very insecure forms of land tenure and resource access. 

In South Africa, as a consequence of a highly centralised approach to the planning of land reforms, and the lack of mandate and capacity for local government to engage decentralised participatory planning managed by local government (the IDP process) in South Africa did not extend to land access or agricultural development issues and that efforts were not being made to land access issues with active efforts to engage land reform communities.

The main conclusions are that a genuinely enabling national policy framework, together with supportive action at state provincial / government level will be needed to ensure effective local government and civil society participation in agrarian development.  Negative factors identified which undermine success include low local government capacity; existence of local government units poorly aligned with social, market and communications networks; highly centralised land reform programmes and political tensions between different layers and sectors of  government.  

In view of these findings, the main recommendations of the research are institutional.

For Brazil:

1. Fuller integration of agrarian policies and programmes within The Agrarian Development Ministry (MDA);
2. Broader sectoral ownership of and engagement with Rural Territorial Development policies at Federal level;
3. Development of enabling institutional and policy frameworks at state level to complement national policies; greater fiscal incentives and controls for municipal government to participate in RTD processes.

For South Africa:

1. Greater decentralisation of land reform planning;
2. Stronger cross sectoral collaboration at provincial level to support decentralised local government initiatives
3. Efforts by national government to ensure that participatory planning and economic development at municipal level through IDPs includes land reform

Overall conclusions
An area based or territorial approach is essential to enable a progressive linkage between improvements in land access – though a variety of mechanisms which may or may not include the market - and sustainable improvements in livelihoods.

In theory, territorial approaches enable strengthened organisation of land reform groups over wider areas by creating platforms to secure institutional support, tackle collective production and marketing needs, and negotiate with private sector interests. They can also facilitate a more integrated approach to diverse and overlapping issues of tenure security, access to seasonal pasture, indigenous rights, land expropriation and restitution, and market based land access, as well as improved coordination and more responsive prioritisation by state agencies.

However, there remain significant institutional, legal and political difficulties, including the commitment of key sectoral agencies which remain wedded to an overwhelmingly sectoral approach, and in establishing and legitimising the authority of new, participatory territorial structures due to weak commitment from state and local government agencies wedded to overwhelmingly sectoral and sometimes parochial approaches, which may also operate in alignment with organised commercial and agro-industrial sectors.

The social movements and civil society organisations are the main drivers of land reform and more equitable models of rural development require an effective and legally sanctioned interface with local political power and with pre-existing planning processes are needed to enable their participation in local economic development planning

There is a the need to re-problematise issues of land access and inequality by diversifying understanding of agrarian change based on fuller empirical and historical understanding of settlement and market development processes within specific geographical areas or territories, including the dynamics of conflicts over the control of land resources, and between agrarian development models.

In order to bring about more inclusive economic development however, territorial development cannot ignore structural inequalities. This requires a genuine mainstreaming of agrarian reform within decentralised approaches to economic development, and the establishment of institutional frameworks within which conflicts of interest between social groups, and different elements of the state itself, can be properly addressed and managed. Greater participatory democratic control over rural economic development will require institutional and legislative reforms which assure greater transparency and accountability over local and central government planning processes as well as the activities of the organised agribusiness sector, and which bring them together within a single policy framework for territorial planning.