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Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth Officially commissioned evaluation studies At least five internal and four external evaluation studies of the land resettlement programme had been conducted by the time of the study. These have yielded a lot of information about the outcomes and impacts of the programme. Table 3.11 is a summary of these keys reports and their main findings and recommendations. The resettlement programme operated largely without a formal evaluation unit until 1984 when an agreement with the ODA provided technical assistance for setting up such a unit. Internal ad hoc monitoring arrangements had been in existence however since 1982 with monthly meetings and annual reviews (Cusworth and Walker, 1988) The establishment of this unit meant that ongoing and continuous monitoring of the project could be established largely as a requirement of the ODA reporting arrangements. It was at the establishment of this unit that it was realised that two separate project documents had been drawn up. One was drawn up by the ODA while the other was the operational document for the Government of Zimbabwe. Although the objectives outlined in the two documents were similar, the modalities and targets differed significantly. A key area of difference was on the numbers to be resettled. Furthermore, UK public funds would only support Model A schemes. Through annual surveys and reviews, the evaluation unit built up a database of the Model A schemes. It is this database that formed an important baseline for most of the evaluation studies to date. 3.12 Lessons from external evaluations and ad hoc Commissions Although there is evidence that prior to these evaluations the donors (and particularly the ODA) were involved in monitoring the programme activities through monthly meetings of the interministerial committee in charge of resettlement and annual reviews, the 1988 evaluation study was the first formal external evaluation of the programme. By the time of this evaluation significant alterations to the original proposal had been made unilaterally by the Zimbabwe government. The most significant was the change in the targets for resettlement from the 17,500 families to the 162,000 families (ODA, 1988). The evaluation was therefore being based on the original funding agreements. This in itself is significant because it puts into context the problematic relationship between the Government of Zimbabwe and the UK government that has dogged this programme to date. Key findings raised by the evaluations included: • That the programme had resettled more than 40,000 families at a cost of Z$3,642 (£2,106 at 1986 rates) per household against the original project target of 17,500 families. (While this is a remarkable result in terms of the original proposal targets, for the Zimbabwe government this was way below the 162,000 families it had hoped to resettle). • The programme did better than expected, achieving an Economic Internal Rate of Return of 21 per cent. This was significantly higher than the original forecast of 14 per cent in the ODA appraisal document. The EEC evaluation study shows variations in returns according to agro-ecological regions and emerged with a range of 14.8 per cent for those in marginal areas to 44.8 per cent for the farmers in better rainfall areas. • These significant increases in productivity and crop income had taken place but some of the gains were threatened by the collapse of the AFC lending scheme due to the high rate of defaulting. • That the cash crops economy had seen most households moving away from subsistence crop with implications for food security. • That increased incomes or proceeds from improved yields were being invested in the unproductive build up of large herds. • The programme could result in increased social differentiation as some households have benefited more than others. Female-headed households were singled out as a particularly disadvantaged group. • That the programme had not made an impact in decongesting the Communal lands. Evidence of this was provided by increased spontaneous resettlement. It is apparent from these findings that the programme was a qualified success. The ODA report put it succinctly saying ‘it must be a source of satisfaction that such a complex and politically oriented programme that was required to achieve a range of, in some cases apparently conflicting objectives, has not been in economic terms a waste of resources’ (ODA, 1988: 191). This endorsement is however qualified by a further statement that ‘it is however questionable whether future formal resettlement can generate comparably high rates of return’ (ibid: 194). The EEC evaluation deemed the programme results ‘not replicable’ owing to the costs involved (EEC, 1988: xiii.). At the time of its submission, the ODA evaluation study report was well received by the Zimbabwe government as it vindicated its original position that resettlement could result in economic prosperity. For the ODA, though the report showed that the use of the funds had not been in vain, it presented a dilemma on the way forward. Since the results were largely positive, the expectation was that the land redistribution could continue. After a few years of little engagement, an external mission was dispatched in 1996 by the ODA to look at the programme again and see how it could be moved forward. Several changes had occurred by then. Chief among these is the fact that the constitutional constraint for compulsory land purchase had elapsed and a new policy regime was in place. The programme had also shifted in focus with a new set of objectives that focused on the black elite farmers. The 1996 mission came up with the findings that: • The programme had significantly slowed down and was now benefiting the black elite rather than the poor, (something that the major donors would find difficult to support). • Land shortage was not necessarily delaying resettlement as there was still unallocated state land. It isolated constraints related to planning capacity as being partly responsible. • The mission recommended the need to refocus any donor supported programme to the poor and to scale down resettlement to 3,000 families per year. • The return to the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ would be the best way forward in land acquisition. 52
Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth • It was necessary to introduce more players into the resettlement programme, specifically NGOs and the private sector. • A more participatory approach should be used, rather than the heavily technocentric, top down approach of the past. The mission also recommended that a donor’s conference be convened to look at the way forward. The conference was subsequently held in November 1998 after a change of government in the UK. 3.13 The internal evaluations Several internal evaluation studies have also been done. A look at Table 3.11 shows that most of these have been based on the same dataset on which the external evaluation studies were derived. It is, therefore, not surprising that the findings are largely similar. The internal evaluations show: • Resettlement targets set out in GoZ official documents have not been met. This is in marked contrast with the external reports, which base their achievements on the original targets they agreed on or the funding of specific schemes. If the issue of numbers were the main criteria on which this is judged then the programme has been a failure (although when compared to other experiences in Africa the success is monumental, Kinsey, 1999). • Land resettlement had managed to provide households with viable but agriculture-based livelihoods. This increased risk to covariant factors – vulnerability to the vagaries of the weather and the world markets. • Increasing accumulation of assets, with the 1992 Survey finding higher levels of resource ownership than the 1988 survey. This has been accompanied by increasing social differentiation although this is lower here than in the communal areas. • Increasing violations of the terms of permits, which rose from 9,191 in 1987 to 13,756 in 1990. • Poor coordination among the implementing agencies. • Collapsing support services, especially credit facilities and extension services. • Resource-use conflict between the communal and resettlement farmers, especially over wood biomass and other land-based resources. • Increased incidence of squatting on land set aside for grazing schemes within resettlement areas. By 1999 there were 8,000 families ‘squatting’ in resettlement areas. In addition to the above issues distilled from the internal evaluations, several official documents have also made evaluative comments on aspects of the resettlement programme and especially on land acquisition. The Land Reform and Resettlement Programme Phase II Policy Framework and Project Document, published in September 1998, isolates three lessons from the resettlement experience. While stating that the programme ‘learnt that land redistribution can have high financial and economic returns’, it concedes that ‘shifting the focus to better-off peasants from 1990 to 1995 meant the virtual neglect of the land needs of the landless majority in communal areas, and an unresolved land question’ (GoZ, 1998c: 7 and 9). A further area of learning singled out is the careful management of the environment. The National Land Policy Framework paper released in December 1998 was more explicit in its assessment of issues that needed attention in the programme. While isolating the land supply constraints emanating from the legal and constitutional framework, the report identifies ‘the weak co-ordination of policy; archaic and top down physical planning rather than socially grounded and democratic principles of planning; rigid and thus ineffective land use modelling; the weak legal definition of the main implementation procedures and land rights of settlers; and the undue efforts by the state and party to control the land redistribution programme’ (GoZ, 1998d: 27) as major flaws in the programme. It is clear from the official evaluations that they see the land resettlement programme as having improved the livelihoods of the resettled farmers. While ad hoc commissions have sought to influence the strategic role of resettlement in the macro-policy arena, the evaluations have sought to provide information that could form the basis for improvements in the programme. Impact of land reforms on livelihoods and poverty It is quite clear from available evidence that land reform when well planned and executed produced positive results. These include findings that: • Resettlement gave the (mostly poor) households a livelihood. Planned resettlement allowed careful and generally transparent selection of households from among the target groups. Resettled households were able to increase their land asset base to about 5ha. This allowed them to produce more and earn farm-linked incomes substantially higher than their communal area peers in some areas. We know, however, that this increased income did not necessarily translate into better education and nutrition for children due to some design flaws in the settlements (Kinsey, 1999). • The success of agriculture in resettlement areas spurred on the development of the local non-farm sector and most of the planned resettlement areas from the 1980s have become fully fledged settlements, with a full range of services available. These had begun to create local employment opportunities by the time the crisis emerged. • The newly created settlements worked well as long as state support was available (during the first four years the settlements were run as projects with a resident officer, but from year four they were handed over to local administration). We know that once the resident manager was withdrawn some of the settlements floundered. Again this was a design flaw of projectised resettlement following a standard model which suggested that resettled households should be able to thrive after about five years – yet we know that this is not necessarily so in rain constrained settlements like those in Zimbabwe. • Most households increased their net worth by year 10 of being resettled, even if one in every four years was a drought year – in Nyamakate the value of productive and other assets increased by as much as 253 per cent over 10 years (Chimhowu and Hulme, 2006). Most of this increase in net 53
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