From ‘Growth with Equity’ to ‘Fast-Track’ Reform: Zimbabwe's Land Question

Abstract

This article represents a provisional attempt to explain the changing and competing strands of the debate surrounding the ‘land question’ as it has unfolded in Zimbabwe in the past 23 years. As in most contexts of land reform, the debate is highly political whether packaged in nationalist or technocratic rhetoric. Since independence, three phases of land reform debate can be identified: the early independence years from 1980 to about 1989, the period of structural adjustment and afterwards from 1990–1999, and the current phase which commenced in 2000. The paper concludes by providing an update on the short-term repercussions of the ‘fast-track’ reform programme for the agricultural sector, food security and the wider economy.