Gender, Politics and Land Use in Zimbabwe 1980-2012

The agrarian reform dynamics in southern Africa have to be understood within the framework of colonial land policies and legislation that were designed essentially to expropriate land and natural resource property rights from the indigenous people in favour of the white settlers. Colonial land policies institutionalised racial inequity with regard to land although conditions are not homogeneous there are broad themes that cut across the southern Africa region. Colonialism dispossessed and impoverished the people by taking away the most productive lands. Neoliberal globalization has undermined the people's wellbeing through direct influences on agriculture and rural economies in conjunction with policies promoted by national governments and international agencies. Another shared feature is to be found in the high rates of unemployment, poor returns to small-scale agriculture, lack of access to social services such as health and education all of which serve to erode existing livelihood activities and perpetuate relative and absolute poverty in rural areas.