This chapter discusses land issues in southern Africa in general, and in Zimbabwe in particular. At independence most African states with settler white farmers inherited a skewed land distribution in favour of the white commercial farmers. Countries like Namibia and South Africa, among others, embarked on some land redistribution programmes in a bid to reduce the imbalances in the distribution of land and to reduce poverty through empowering the indigenous people. When the German government occupied the land of Namibia their focus was on making use of the land resources. Tapscott (1994) notes that at independence, some 45 per cent of the total land area and 74 per cent of the potentially arable land was owned by less than four thousand one hundred people, mainly white commercial farmers, who comprised less than 0.2 per cent of the total population. It should be noted that about 40 per cent of land in Namibia is commercial, surveyed and fenced and is overwhelmingly in the hands of a white minority (Van Donge, Eiseb and Mosimane 2005). According to the same authors, 45 per cent of the Namibian population lives in about 7 per cent of the territory’s surface, a clear indication that there is overcrowding and pressure on resources. The land question in Namibia centres around two important issues, firstly, individual claims are emerging in communal areas as rich farmers fence land which is threatening access to land by the poor. The government of Namibia has thus removed authority and power over land from the local traditional leaders (Van Donge et al 2005).

Given the above examples, the chapter looks at the Zimbabwean Land Reform programme, focusing on its goals, objectives, models, achievements and failures. It also highlights the different legislations that gave birth to the land reform exercise. The first phase of the land reform is covered by the period 1980 to 1998. This came about as a result of the Lancaster House Agreement. As noted in Chapter Three, the liberation struggle was fought as a result of dissatisfaction on the part of the indigenous Zimbabweans who lost good fertile land to white settlers.