A fresh start for rural development and agrarian reform?

Abstract

The commons (or common-pool resources)1 are the most important resources in southern Africa. The livelihoods of the majority and economies of most countries depend on them. Although common property regimes are often condemned as environmentally unsustainable, economically unviable or socially anachronistic, this mode of natural resource tenure and governance remains vitally necessary in the livelihoods of the rural poor across much of the region (Hara et al., 2009). Away from a limited number of project-based efforts for communitybased management (often focused on specific natural resource sectors), such as Zimbabwe’s high-profile CAMPFIRE, millions of poor, rural people across the region continue their own integrated efforts to manage and live from the ecosystems that surround them. This, above all, is a challenge to governance. The poor must tackle it – and governments and development agencies must support their endeavours (ibid.).