On the anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s passing, we reflect on one of the unfinished aspects of the first administration and Mandela’s presidency – the issue of land reform. The Foundation has commissioned research that traces the land reform governance pathway followed under Madiba’s presidency. It does so with a view to reflect honestly on the successes and failures that have paved an enduring status quo of widespread land hunger and inequity.
“Some criticise Mandela’s Presidency for the current state of landlessness and the country’s inability to find a substantive resolution to the historical land question. Contemporary criticisms of Mandela's land reform efforts include assertions of fundamental contradictions in the constitutional underpinnings of land rights, and proposals on how a lack of clear legislative definitions has resulted in poor implementation. A generally held view is that the negotiated settlement concerning land, arising out of the pre-1994 negotiations, locked the historically dispossessed in legalised landlessness.”
“This report provides a better understanding of how Mandela’s leadership during the struggle and his Presidency impacted the land question, and provides a historical assessment of Mandela and his Presidency up to the end of his Presidential years. It also aims to unpack his performance relative to the ambitions of the struggle concerning land and what his government had set out to achieve. Moreover, it also seeks to understand the extent to which Mandela’s Presidency and the policy foundations it established are connected to the land question in South Africa today”
– Mandela and Land. Land Research Report Series. December 2024.