More than three decades after the advent of democracy, land reform remains one of South Africa’s most pressing and emotive challenges — a powerful symbol of the country’s painful history of dispossession, but also a critical lever for building a more inclusive and economically empowered future.
Yet, despite its significance to South Africa’s transformation agenda, the pace and impact of land reform has been slow, uneven, and often deeply contested. For many land reform beneficiaries, restitution of land has not automatically translated into economic freedom, self-sufficiency, or sustainable livelihoods.
Increasingly, there is growing recognition that land reform cannot be viewed in isolation from broader economic development. Unlocking the full transformative potential of land requires not just restitution or redistribution of land, but the deliberate enablement of rural economies, empowerment of beneficiary communities to upskill them to enable them to make their land productive, to ensure that they can effectively participate in commercial agriculture, eco-tourism and other broader areas within the land value chain.
“When communities gain access to land, that is only the beginning. The real challenge — and opportunity — lies in ensuring that the land becomes a source of economic benefit, creates jobs, exposes communities to access markets and enables skills development,” says Peter Setou, Chief Executive of the Vumelana Advisory Fund (Vumelana), a non-profit organisation that was established to help communities in the land reform programme to put their land to productive use.
“Since its establishment in 2012, Vumelana has worked alongside land reform beneficiaries and private sector investors to develop and implement models that facilitate the productive use of land, with a particular focus on post-settlement support and capacity building — aspects of the land reform value chain that have long been neglected in the country’s policy and implementation landscape,” Setou explains.
“Too often, land reform discussions become polarised between ideological positions — whether around expropriation without compensation or market-based redistribution — rather than focusing on the real and practical question: how do we ensure that communities have the skills, capital, and market access they need to turn land into opportunity?
“The conversation should not be limited to who owns the land but should also focus on how that land is used, and whether it delivers meaningful benefits for the communities who fought to reclaim it. Far greater attention needs to be paid to what happens after land has been transferred.”
Central to Vumelana’s approach is the facilitation of partnerships between land reform beneficiary communities and private sector investors. These partnerships help to unlock access to capital, skills, and markets — resources that many new land reform beneficiary communities would otherwise struggle to access on their own.
Vumelana’s Community Private Partnerships (CPPs) model demonstrates the power of partnerships in land reform, where land-holding communities enter into agreements with private sector partners who bring operational expertise, market access, and capital to the table, while the communities retain ownership and derive financial support and skills from such partnerships.
“We do not have to reinvent the wheel. There are a few working models across the country that demonstrate the power of collaborative partnerships in making land productive and commercially viable,” says Setou.
The CPP model has not only unlocked value on land that may otherwise have remained fallow, but it has also created pathways for skills transfer, job creation, access to markets and inclusive economic development.
“Where these partnerships are structured well and trust is built between beneficiary communities and private investors, we see communities participating meaningfully in the economy while maintaining ownership and decision-making power over their land,” says Setou.
Through the CPP model, Vumelana has successfully facilitated 26 partnerships between land reform beneficiaries and private investors, putting approximately 76 000 hectares of land into productive use and attracting over R1 billion in private investments.
The broader opportunity for South Africa is to see land reform not only as a way of acquiring land to address racial practices of the past, but as an economic strategy to drive inclusive growth, address rural poverty, and create employment, and much needed skills.
“Done well, land reform can transform rural economies, drive economic freedom, and integrate more South Africans into the productive economy. But this requires moving beyond policy commitments and slogans and operationalising a comprehensive support ecosystem for land reform beneficiaries - one that includes financing, technical support, market access, infrastructure development, and skills transfer.”
As South Africa looks to accelerate the pace of land reform, the focus must shift beyond policy commitments towards a practical implementation of solutions that drive economic outcomes. This requires recognising that successful land reform is an integral part of rural development. This also requires access to affordable finance, infrastructure investment, and market participation.
“If land is to become a true instrument of transformation that unlocks economic freedom — not just a symbol of redress —the land reform programme must unlock both ownership and opportunity,” Setou concludes.
