Land Tenure and Economic Development in Rural South Africa: Constraints and Opportunities

Abstract

"Tenure security has major implications for economic development in the former homelands of South Africa. Many of the areas referred to as 'communal' were deliberately created to further colonial policies. They were intended to serve as reservoirs for cheap migratory labour. People were forcibly moved to the 'bantustans' without reference to the wishes of the established inhabitants. There is a legacy of severe land pressure and land-related conflict, unsurpassed elsewhere in southern Africa."