Social policy outcomes of Zimbabwe's fast track land reform program (FTLRP) : a case study of Kwekwe District

Abstract

This thesis explores social policy outcomes of the FTLRP. The thesis comes from an appreciation that there has been a lot of attention that has been given to the process and outcomes of the FTLRP. Various and sometimes antagonistic analytical frameworks have been employed by different scholars who come from different epistemological standings resulting in academic polarity on the subject of the FTLRP in Zimbabwe. This thesis transcends all the analytical frameworks to provide a unique perspective of the extent to which the FTLRP achieved social policy outcomes. Some of the scholars who have written on this subject have grappled with some of the social policy outcomes without however a deliberate focus on social policy outcomes. The main contribution of this thesis to the body of knowledge is its exploration of the extent to which the FTLRP has been a social policy tool that has achieved social policy outcomes. This is important because for a long time land reform has not been generally considered as a social policy tool in the main stream social policy literature. The reason for this is that social policy literature has been dominated by OECD scholars who naturally focused more on social policy tools that are more relevant to their contexts. In the process they have sought to transpose the tools that are more prevalent in their contexts to Africa. Consequently, social policy tools from the global south, such as land reform, have not featured in any significant way in mainstream social policy literature. The thesis used the transformative social policy framework in both the research and analysis of the data. The conceptual framework identifies five functions of social policy namely redistribution, production, protection, reproduction and social cohesion. Using a mixed methods approach, the thesis interrogated the extent to which the five functions of social policy were realised by the FTLRP. Research findings have shown that the major outcome that was unequivocally realised was redistribution. This is so because the country’s agrarian structure dramatically changed from a bi-modal set up where 6000 white farmers owned more than 35 percent of the arable land to a new structure where about 180 000 households of diverse backgrounds, inter alia former farm workers, people from communal areas, civil servants, war veterans, pensioners, government senior civil servants and the unemployed, now work and live on the same land. The other four social policy functions were achieved to varying degrees. Lastly, the research looked at the human development outcomes of the FTLRP by focusing on the state of education in the resettled areas. The research observed that the FTLRP increased both primary (13%) and secondary (31%) education accessibility for the children of land beneficiaries. Due to the abrupt nature with which education services were on demand, the quality was compromised.