I have just returned from working on a British-funded project in Uganda, helping to implement land reform. My year there introduced me to the real world of aid and development and prompted me to reassess some old assumptions. Based on that experience, I want to consider the issue of aid for land reform in Zimbabwe.
First, a few general points. Donors are criticised now for infringing on the sovereignty of debtor states in Africa by imposing strict conditions on the use of aid (or as a precondition of debt relief). It's worth recalling that from the 1960s to the 1980s, donors more or less went along with what African nations wanted. The billions of dollars which now hang over the continent is debt which African nations freely took on and then too often wasted or salted away in foreign banks.
One of the saddest books I have read recently is Pat Caplan's African Voices, African Lives, a study of a peasant family in southern Tanzania. It tells the story of the declining living conditions of the family over the 30 years of Caplan's study. Contrast the hundreds of millions of dollars of aid for Tanzania since 1961 and the life of this family-their life-style continues as it has since the beginning of time but slowly, little by little, gets worse, untouched by a single dollar of aid.
Life will get worse still unless Tanzania (and others) are relieved of debt, say the Jubilee 2000 debt-relief campaigners. But if the peasants did not gain from the millions of dollars of direct aid, how will they gain from the millions of dollars of indirect aid, unless stringent conditions are attached?
Progressives in rich countries do not acknowledge the depth of this problem. It is not enough to talk vaguely about conditions. For conditions to mean anything, they need to be detailed, and their implementation must be overseen by government representatives. Such representatives need not always be white macro-economists from Surrey, but even if they are other black Africans, the implicit erosion of sovereignty is unavoidable.
Jubilee 2000 sometimes suggests that "conditionalities" could be operated via local groups. A school built with aid funds could be monitored by the local branch of the teachers' union. This is naïve. In Uganda the government allocated quite generous sums for land reform, but it was a constant battle to stop the money being spent by central government officials on smart new four-by-fours, study tours, computers and so on. In many parts of Africa, if the local officers of the teachers' union controlled a building project they would do a deal with the contractors: saying, in effect, "direct some of the building materials or money our way and we will certify that all is well."
Conditions mean that donors have to satisfy themselves on behalf of their taxpayers that money released from repayment of debt is spent on what the debt release agreement requires that it be spent on. If this means intrusive investigation, then so be it.
The "less aid with more conditions" approach-debt relief tied strictly to poverty reduction and good governance targets-is the only way forward, notwithstanding the difficulties. It is depressing beyond words that the World Bank, the IMF and donor countries have to impose such conditions on African governments. But the truth is that if there were not this external pressure, few African governments would spend the money on raising their people out of poverty.
The record of the Zimbabwe government on land reform since 1980 is mixed, to say the least. Reform from 1981 to 1987, part-funded by Britain, was well executed. But most Zimbabweans at the time of independence lived on land with no security of tenure; they were, in effect, tenants at the will of the state. Twenty years on, that position has not changed. People living on communal lands still have no secure tenure-while the government and party elite who have obtained a great deal of land do have such security. Peasants who obtained land under settlement schemes have also failed to get security of tenure; they are licensees. The division of haves and have-nots which was the foundation of land policy in colonial times, has been perpetuated by Robert Mugabe, and for the same reason: it is the best way to control the rural population.
The attacks on European farms must be seen in this light; neither the white farmers nor their black workers are subject to "livelihood control" by the administration. This is what grates. Farm invasions, beatings, killings, and torching of homes make the point that no one is immune from central government control.
To insist that the occupations end and free elections are held before aid can begin, does not deal with this issue. What will the aid for "real land reform" achieve? It will increase settlement licensees and, thus, government control of the rural population.
What then should the British government do? It should follow the principles set out in its own white paper Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century, which makes aid conditional on: effective steps to tackle corruption; reduction of defence expenditure and foreign military adventures; respect for human rights and development of a clear strategy for tackling poverty. There is no reason for departing from those principles just because Mugabe does not like them.
Britain is supporting land reform programmes in Uganda and Tanzania. In both countries, the new legislation favours local democracy, the poor and women. Land management is decentralised to the lowest level and, most important of all, the law confers security of tenure on peasants and provides ways for them to obtain documentary evidence of this. The policies behind the laws were developed by the governments of the countries concerned-they were not imposed by donors. But donors are more than happy to assist in their implementation.
Zimbabwe's commission on land tenure reform has recently reported. The recommendations broadly follow the Tanzanian and Ugandan approach; devolve land management to the villages and provide secure tenure for the peasants both in communal lands and in settlement schemes. This must be the basis for any British support for land reform in Zimbabwe. This is the only policy which will ensure that in the long run, a prosperous, democratic and reasonably just society develops.
Britain must resist blackmail over aid-via attacks on white farmers-not just for the sake of British taxpayers but for the sake of those African governments which are struggling to reform their economies in line with the principles of good governance.
