Twenty-five years after Zimbabwe’s land reform: understanding change

This year it’s 25 years since Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform. Ever since the year 2000 when people invaded the land and former white farmers were dispossessed of their farms, we have been tracking what has happened. We have been asking a very simple question: what happened to livelihoods once people got land?

This year is therefore a moment to reflect on this process over a quarter of a century. This is important for Zimbabwe, as the country looks forward to economic regeneration with land and farming central, but also more generally as other countries in the region, notably South Africa, grapple with land reform and more widely as debates about the roles of agrarian reform in galvanising growth through increasing equity via land redistribution.

This article appears in the Zimbabweland blog of 20th January 2025.