Speech by the Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs, honourable Lulu Xingwana at the launch of the Settlement and Implementation Support (SIS) Strategy for Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa, Sheraton Hotel, Pretoria

Honourable members of Parliament
Excellency, Ambassador for Belgium
All MECs present today
Directors-General for Agriculture, Land and Foreign Affairs
Chief Land Claims Commissioner and all Commissioners present
Executive Mayor of Tshwane
Members of the Belgian delegation
Leaders of organised agriculture, business, labour, civil society members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to officially launch the Settlement and Implementation Support (SIS) Strategy for Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa, especially at the time when land and agrarian reform is gathering momentum in the country.

Let me extend my sincere appreciation to the Belgian Development Co-operation and the Belgian Technical Co-operation agency (BTC), for your support in making funds available for the realisation of this ground-breaking project. I must affirm clearly that whenever you are called upon; you are always ready to serve.

Also, let me take this opportunity to extol the contribution of the Sustainable Development Consortium (SDC), which was tasked with the responsibility to draft the strategy.

The SDC, in collaboration with seven organisations, including the Phuhlisani Solutions, Developmental Services, Knowledge Crucible, Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), Legal Resources Centre and Ciber Communications must be commended for developing this comprehensive strategy.

This collaboration confirms and strengthens the fact that government is indeed committed to a comprehensive sustainable agricultural development and agrarian reform.

The Land Summit in 2005 recommended that solutions be sought for a new practical and integrated development approach to land reform and given its prominence in the Constitution, Apex priorities and ANC resolutions, land and agrarian reform remains a national priority.

Post settlement support has been identified as critical for the success and sustainability of the land and agrarian reform programme. The reviews of Settlement and Land Acquisition Grant (SLAG), Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) and Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) including restitution all point to the need for settlement and implementation support to all land reform beneficiaries, as evidenced in the failed projects. The SIS strategy was developed to make proposals towards addressing these challenges.

This strategy presented to us provides useful insights accumulated from a number of different sources and experiences over the past 12 years, which will enable us to define our next decade with great diligence and care, aimed at eliminating the errors created in the first decade of land and agrarian reform implementation.

Programme director, the SIS strategy is a highly evidence-based approach, written over a period of 18 months with the aim of developing comprehensive planning for land and agrarian reform in South Africa which will ensure that land reform beneficiaries are provided with the support that will secure their rights and enhance their livelihood sustainability.

It is needless to mention, that the SIS strategy has been developed through concrete knowledge and studying of post land reform projects, robust engagement with land practitioners and consultative forums that brought together key provincial role players responsible for supporting land reform projects.

I want to appeal to all of you involved in land reform, not to interpret the SIS strategy as "yet another concept" but as the science of land reform, because it is a product of our past and current occurrences. It is a well thought response to the loud cry and expressed need for post settlement support. The need was expressed by the Land Summit, by the land reform beneficiaries themselves, by organised agriculture, by the Polokwane conference and by the various Makgotla.

The strategy recommends that land reform must be acknowledged as "Every body's business", and places land and agrarian reform at the centre of local government ensuring that all projects are embedded in the Integrated Development Plans (IDPs), in the Local Economic Development Plans and in the Provincial Growth Development Strategies. The approach of the strategy is in sync with the Department of Land Affairs' Area Base Planning (ABP) and the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS), Land and Agrarian Programme (LARI).

I have given direction to the two departments in the Ministry, namely; Agriculture and Land Affairs that as enjoined by the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act (Act No.13 of 2005), we will have to drive a joint LARP, which will subsequently lead to better service to our people, and make a huge contribution towards rural development.

Programme director, as we launch this strategy these two departments are already developing an implementation plan for the Land and Agrarian Reform Programme (LARP) of which the SIS strategy will be a major part. Objectives of the LARP are to:

* create access to land by the poor; to become new agricultural producers
* increase the number of black agricultural entrepreneurs
* create access to agricultural support services
* increase agricultural production by 10 to 15 percent, through the Letsema-Ilima campaign; and
* increase agricultural trade and export by 10 to 15 percent.

Thus far LARP has been launched in the provinces of the Western Cape, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. This coming Saturday, the 23rd of February, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs will launch LARP in the Free State province.

The ANC resolution at its conference in December 2007 on this very important aspect of land and agrarian reform is loud and clear. We indeed do not have the luxury of trial and error or but need to implement with full steam for a better life for land reform beneficiaries. The SIS strategy should enable us to do just that.

Over the past 12 years, as government, we have made enormous headway which has resulted in the delivery of more than 4 million hectares of land, to beneficiaries of the land reform programme. However, it should be noted that this has not been matched with skills transfer and sustainability.

As we transfer land to the land reform beneficiaries, we must ensure that we are contributing to black economic empowerment, skills transfer through training and mentorship to job creation, to income generation and to sustained growth.

The message is very clear to all of us "land reform is more than a land hand over, that freedom alone is not enough, we need to see change in the quality of life".

In his recent State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki said: "As we act together everywhere in our country, we must also understand that what we have to be about is - Business Unusual!"

Therefore in reference to the President's remarks, I call upon all men and women, sector departments and land role players (private and public) to join hands in the broader developmental agenda towards the realisation of a developmental state in our lifetime.

Rightly so, the theme of the SIS strategy is that land reform is everybody's business. The struggle for liberation centred on the need for redistribution, restitution and security of tenure. The challenge facing us now is to promote and rebuild agricultural co-operatives that form the pillar of agriculture in South Africa. And build sustainable new class of black entrepreneurs and encourage family farms. Currently a comprehensive land reform programme is an essential element of integrated sustainable rural development.

It is for this reason that I urge all role players and community partners to commit and rally behind this comprehensive strategy, because as government our goal is to maximise opportunities for strategic partnerships with the private sector to deliver support services and engage in joint ventures where appropriate. All hands on deck to speed up change in the lives of our people.

I have noted with great humility, concerns raised by other government departments, municipalities and other stakeholders through the SIS strategy that there is inadequate co-ordination and the need for alignment remains inadequately addressed.

In conclusion, I have already indicated that the departments of Agriculture and Land Affairs are hard at work to finalise an implementation plan for the SIS strategy as part of broader LARP. I have further asked them to consider interim measures that will make optimal use of existing capacities, such as using the post settlement staff that are in the Land Commission, use vacant posts in Land Affairs as well as the farmer support unit in the Department of Agriculture to ensure that we can immediately implement the recommendations of this SIS strategy report.

The medium to long term plan is to establish a Land and Agrarian Development Agency (LADA), whose function will be to drive the implementation of land and agrarian reform, which to a large extent includes rural development.

Once more, a big thank you to the Belgian government and to all those who participated to make this success that it has become. I am looking forward to the implementation of yet the other two further projects that we have agreed upon with the Belgians and these relate to the implantation of post settlement support as well as integrated land reform.

Business Unusual: All hands on deck to speed up change!

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Land Affairs
18 February 2008