Namibia country report

Despite the Poverty Reduction Strategy being quiet on the role of land reform in povertyreduction programmes, Cabinet has continued to demand that land reform contribute topoverty reduction. In April 2006, Cabinet approved the recommendations, strategic optionsand action plan on land reform submitted by the Permanent Technical Team on Land Reform(PTT). These include recommendations that the action plans of national programmes suchas Vision 2030, the National Poverty Reduction Programme and NDP2 (sic) “should specifyquantifiable indicators and targets relating to poverty reduction, employment creationand income distribution in the short term”, and that government should improve thescreening and selection of beneficiaries by “determining whether current criteria are socially,economically and politically appropriate”. In addition:Urgent attention should be given to the priorities of those groups urgently in need ofresettlement. Policy should, as a matter of urgency, take into account the priorities ofdisadvantaged groups in need of resettlement, such as farm workers and women …Policy amendments should encourage community driven resettlement, giving priorityto beneficiaries who indicate a preference for rural, agriculture-based lifestyles andwho have agricultural experience and/or other land-based production experience(RoN 2006: 2).These directives are not borne out by NDP3 which was released in 2008. The overarchingstrategies of NDP3 to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty include strengthening anddiversifying the agricultural base of poor rural communities by, inter alia, encouragingdiversification and improving agricultural production. However, improved access to landthrough land reform does not feature (RoN 2008: 195). While NDP2 also did not provideany detail on how land reform would support a broad-based rural development strategyaimed at reducing poverty, it did at least mention that land would be provided to poor,landless families (RoN n.d.: 565).The absence of a discussion of the role of land reform in poverty reduction in NDP3 suggeststhat a fundamental rethink among technocrats on poverty alleviation has taken place inrecent years. There is evidence that a reassessment of the role of land reform in povertyreduction has been underway in the MLR. The first indications of this appeared in theMinistry’s Annual Report for 1998/99, which referred to a “paradigm shift in its search foran integrated and sustainable resettlement programme”. The report suggested that thiswas a response to both a lack of suitable land for resettlement and budgetary constraintsfor buying, demarcating and upgrading farms.The paradigm shift appears to have been away from beneficiaries with few assets and littleexperience in agriculture towards those who could bring sufficient assets and experienceinto the process to farm productively. In terms of the new paradigm, “it was imperative toexpand [the] list of priority groups to include people who can add value to the resettlementprogramme by making a contribution to the maintenance of allotments and pay monthlylease amounts to government” (MLRR, Annual Report 1998/99: 33). In a ministerial workshoptwo years later, it was observed that individual beneficiaries were more successful than“the poorest of the poor” and provided employment opportunities. In the same workshop,12 ● Livelihoods after land reform: Namibia country report (2010)