The incidence of land tenure insecurity in Southern Africa: Policy implications for sustainable development

The study presented in this article used a combination of key informant interviews and a review and synthesis of existing country level literature to identify the major sources of land tenure insecurity in six Southern African countries: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia. Findings reveal that the main causes of land tenure insecurity experienced in Southern Africa include lack of land rights of minority groups, unclear or overlapping land rights, overcrowding, land alienation into leasehold, insecurity of farm workers and farm labour tenants, inappropriate and exploitative administrative practices, land encroachment and illegal settlers and limited women's land rights. The article presents a summary of land tenure security related initiatives that the study countries have or are in the process of adopting. Analysis of these initiatives shows that tenure reforms have focused on changing the law and rules but little has been done to translate new laws into implementable programs; capacity building; prioritization of resources to support tenure reform; provision of complementary policies and incentives; addressing HIV/AIDS‐land tenure related problems; and monitoring and evaluation. The paper contends that these policy issues should be addressed in order to ensure realization of land tenure security for all.     

Mining development,income growth and poverty alleviation: A multiplier decomposition technique applied to China

Mining has grown rapidly and is expected to continue to develop solidly in the future with the economic development in China. Based on this trend, how an increase in the outputs of mining sectors affects household income and poverty alleviation is an issue worthy of study. A multiplier decomposition method within a social accounting matrix (SAM) framework shows the linkages through which a mining sector's output contributes to household income growth and poverty alleviation. The decomposition applied to China reveals that mining development has more significantly positive impacts on the high and middle income household than low income household. Moreover, the decomposition incorporated with the Foster, Greer and Thoerbecke (FGT) poverty measure shows that the ‘coal’ sector contributes most to poverty alleviation and the low income household group, which has the biggest poverty rate, is the smallest beneficiary from the mining development. Thus, the policy implication is proposed that the government should give appropriate adjustment on the distribution of income between rich and poor households and help the unskilled human capital from the household group at a low income level to handle advanced technology of mining through education and training to reduce poverty more effectively.     

Migrant land rights reception and 'clearing to claim' in sub-Saharan Africa: A deforestation example from southern Zambia

The relationship between migration and deforestation in the developing world continues to receive significant attention. However beyond direct population increase, the precise mechanisms that operate within the intersection of migrant/host land rights remain largely unexamined. Where migrants are provided with land and rights by the State and/or local communities, how such rights are perceived by the migrants is of primary importance in their interaction with land resources, and in aggregate it impacts the development opportunities and environmental repercussions of migration. The authors analyze the operative aspects of land rights reception (as opposed to provision) by migrant populations, and the relationship between this reception and deforestation. The article examines a case in Zambia to analyze how tenurial constructs, emerging from the way rights are perceived by migrants, lead to the continued clearing of areas much larger than needed for cultivation, even when the arrangement appears counter‐productive in terms of land rights provision and labour allocation. While valuable policy efforts have focused on providing resource rights to migrants, how such rights are received and the relationship of this reception to resource management needs greater policy attention.     

National minerals policies and stakeholder participation for broad-based development in the southern African development community (SADC)

This paper explains how the well-accepted concept of improved stakeholder participation during mineral policy development leads to a national mineral policy that accommodates the diverging views and interests that allows wide acceptance of decisions, enhancing the success of implementation and, ultimately, national benefits. This process is based on lessons learnt during the South African experience and has been successfully applied in the development of the Namibian and Malawian national minerals policies. An effective policy in the SADC will engineer the delicate balance between poverty reduction and an internationally competitive minerals sector. This balance enhances the possibility of long-term economic growth and development in the SADC region. The overriding advantage of this strategy is that it generates ‘home-grown’ policy instruments and implementation of mineral law with which stakeholders can identify. This process presents a new challenge to traditional policy formulation strategies in emerging economies and the bottom-up approach, linked to wide political support, allows the potential realisation of national objectives.