INVITATION: Critical Dialogues on Equitable Access to Land in South Africa

This webinar will examine the performance of post-apartheid land reform in relation to Section 25 (5) of the constitution which provides for the broadening of access to land on an equitable basis. South Africa’s Constitution contains progressive reform measures that empower the state to effect just and equitable land reform. Yet post-apartheid land reform has fallen short of expectations. Land inequality continues to be a key defining feature of poverty in both urban and rural areas. Administrative failures to operationalise the constitutional imperatives on equitable land reform are often cited as one of the key underlying causes of underperformance in post-apartheid land reform. Various landmark court judgements have drawn attention to some of these legislative and policy gaps. This webinar will examine the constitutional dimension of land reform and specifically focus on the complexities of realising the right to equitable access to land for the urban and rural poor in South Africa. 

Key questions 

• How has post-apartheid land reform fared in addressing the existing realities of poverty and inequality in South Africa’s rural and urban areas?
• Have the reform measures in the current constitution been sufficiently utilised to effect a just and equitable land reform and if not why?
• What are the key impediments to broadening access to land for the urban and rural poor in South Africa?
• What are the key elements of an equitable rural and urban land reform?
• How can these alternatives be promoted to ensure more equitable land reform outcomes?

Tune in on Thursday 9 September 2021 at:

• 13:00 South African Standard Time (SAST)/Central African Time (CAT)
• 12:00 West African Time (WAT)
• 11:00 Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT) (Ghana)
• 14:00 East African Time (EAT) (Tanzania)

Please register here to be part of the webinar: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYldO-qqDwiHdTC9XlE6DsqHTAAfyYs3qgT

Speakers include:

Mandisa Shandu is an attorney and the Executive Director at Ndifuna Ukwazi where she is part of a dynamic interdisciplinary team that works towards expanding and protecting access to land and affordable housing as part of a broader goal to realise a more equal and spatially just city. Her areas of practice include constitutional property and housing law, administrative justice and access to basic services.

Tembeka Ngcukaitobi is an advocate specialising in public law. He is also a public speaker, author and political activist. Tembeka is the author of highly acclaimed books on issues of land reform in South Africa – The Land is Ours: South Africa’s First Black Lawyers and the Birth of Constitutionalism and Land Matters: South Africa’s failed Land Reforms and the Road Ahead.

Farai Mtero is a senior researcher at PLAAS who works on Land Reform and Inclusive Growth. Farai’s current research is on land reform outcomes and more specifically the extent to which South Africa’s redistributive land reform has been pro-poor. More broadly, his research raises critical questions on the role of land redistribution as a mechanism for social transformation in South Africa.

Katlego Ramantsima is a researcher and PhD student at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape. She works on land redistribution in South Africa with a focus on land redistribution, gender politics and rural social change in South Africa. Her research interests lie in the fields of financialisation in the agricultural sector, resource-based development, industrial relations, trade policy, communal land rights, land reform, political economy, urban regeneration and rural social change.

Background

PLAAS and Ndifuna Ukwazi are hosting a series of webinars to promote a public dialogue on the current realities and prospects for broadened access to land in South Africa. The webinars will specifically focus on the complexities of realising access to land on an equitable basis; take stock of existing struggles for urban and rural land justice as well as the implications of landmark court judgments that have drawn attention to the failures of post-apartheid land reform; and critically assess how we can promote redress, substantive equality and collective healing through broadened access to land. 

We look forward to rich debates and engagements with civil society representatives, academics, social movements, community-based organisations, housing activists, experts and the general public.