Comments on the Green Paper on land reform 2011

Abstract

As we have indicated in our earlier press release, the document released as a Green Paper by the Department Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform is a great disappointment. The Green Paper is the product of a drafting process taking two and a half years. This has been a secretive process in which the South African public has been kept largely in the dark. The Ministry and its Department have shown themselves to be unwilling to learn from their mistakes, and unwilling to consult with civil society, stakeholders and expert opinion. Instead of providing a Green Paper based on an honest assessment of the past fifteen years of policy implementation, it has refused to learn from experience, both from its own mistakes and successes, and from encouraging innovations that are taking place on the ground, often despite inadequate or misguided state policy. Instead it has produced a vague document that develops general recommendations on the basis of general principles. The result is a Green Paper that fails to answer the key policy questions facing land reform in South Africa.