Harare (New Ziana) -The Zimbabwe government is committed to inclusive and equitable access to agricultural land with a renewed focus on marginalized groups including women, youth, war veterans and persons with disabilities, an official said on Tuesday.
Zimbabwe Land Commission chairperson Tendai Bare said this during a high level workshop on land policy reforms which senior government officials, United Nations Development Program representatives and key stakeholders attended in the capital.
Speaking on behalf of the Minister for Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Anxious Masuka, commissioner Bare emphasized that “all Zimbabweans regardless of gender, age, disability, or social status must have fair and just access to agricultural land.”
She said equitable land access is not only a land issue but a fundamental human rights, development, and sustainability issue affecting food security, national unity, and economic transformation.
The event comes amid ongoing efforts to address the ongoing effects of colonial-era land injustices and inefficiencies within Zimbabwe’s current land governance systems.
Bare acknowledged the significant strides made since the Fast-Track Land Reform Program but conceded that challenges such as underutilization, illegal occupation, tenure insecurity, and inequitable distribution persist.
Addressing the same workshop, UNDP w2representative Tafadzwa Muvingi, presented findings from a new study revealing that land ownership and administration in Zimbabwe remain largely patriarchal.
“Despite Constitutional commitments and policy pronouncements, women and persons with disabilities remain sidelined in land allocation and occupation,” she said.
The study highlights that only 20.8 percent of audited farmers are women and patriarchal norms continue to dominate land registration and ownership structures.
It also flagged the limitations of the 99-year leases and offer letter system, particularly for securing women’s tenure rights during events such as divorce or widowhood.
Muvingi urged the Government to implement the recommendations of the study in order to foster inclusive, transparent, and productive land governance.
These include the finalization of land audits, reallocation of underutilized farms, and the upgrading of the Land Information Management System, which includes an electronic case management platform to enhance administrative efficiency.
Acknowledging progress through the Land Sector Working Group, Muvingi praised Zimbabwe’s movement on key issues such as compensation for former farm owners and the resolution of Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPAs).
She however cautioned that more work remains to be done to bridge existing equity and policy gaps.
Policy and legal frameworks remain under scrutiny, with observers pointing out that land audits have not been made public and that certain Statutory Instruments, like SI 53/14, fail to safeguard the land rights of women while the “one family, one farm” policy, while designed to prevent land monopolies, inadvertently disadvantages women due to male-dominated household registration norms.
As Zimbabwe strives to meet its goal of becoming an upper middle-income economy by 2030, both the government and its partners agreed that inclusive land reform will be key.
“The land we fought for must be used fairly and productively for the benefit of all Zimbabweans,” Bare said.
The workshop closed with a collective call for unity, transparency, and decisive policy action to transform Zimbabwe’s land administration system into one that reflects justice, sustainability, and national development goals.
New Ziana
