Chapter 2 The challenge of evidence-based strategy development: Linkages between evidence, policy and practice

3 Assessing the context 3.3 Potential limitations and risks 3.3.4 The uneasy relationship between quantity and quality

There is a general perception that land reform is taking place too slowly. This reflects a fundamental tension in the balance that DLA has to strike in its priorities between delivering land faster (quantity) and ensuring the social, institutional, ecological and economic sustainability of projects (quality). While the Land Summit identified the need for the provision of settlement support services, the overwhelming thrust of the Summit recommendations and the emphasis of the subsequent Project Gijima have been on finding ways of speeding up land acquisition. The key priorities appear to be driven by quantitative measures – meeting the Presidential Directive to settle all outstanding claims by March 2008 and ensuring that the overall policy target of redistribution of 30% of agricultural land is attained by 2014. This has given rise to measures to speed up the legal settlement of claims and the acquisition of land. But there is a serious risk that, without an overall change of approach and a redefinition of roles between DLA and its partners, the process of accelerated claim settlement and land acquisition will result in overwhelming the already limited operational capacity of government and other actors to provide coherent systems for providing SIS. This will put the success and sustainability of land reform at risk and, at worst, could result in the collapse of the programme.