Livelihoods, institutions and the small farmer - Institutional Constraints to Small Farmer Development in Southern Africa - page 292

the communal areas will therefore always start and end around land issues. To a large extent,
such discussions are important in other traditional societies in the region such as Lesotho
and Swaziland. Quite recently, such issues about the ownership of land were at the centre of
a protracted legal battle between the Government of Botswana and the indigenous peoples
of that country.
Chapter 9 examines the institutional factors governing the existing patterns of communal
rangelands utilization in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The discussion covered
various institutional factors particularly those relevant to natural resource management at
the communal level. Informal institutions such as customary laws and traditional institutions
seem to have gone out of fashion in many places while in a number of communities indigenous
institutions still operate but competitions between them and State structures have resulted
in conflicts and confusion over definition, responsibilities, management procedures and
enforcement mechanisms. It was necessary therefore to include in this topic a substantive
discussion on these various dimensions to provide a basis for future work on the role of
collective action and how collective innovation can contribute in alleviating poverty within
the communal areas of South Africa and elsewhere. A key finding is that lack of government
support to communities has resulted in the poor management of resources. Elements of
the classical tragedy of the commons are embedded in the three cases examined and these
will be explored in greater depth on follow-up projects. The consequence of this has been
deterioration of the rangelands and impoverishment of the communities. The indication
is that transaction costs and good governance structures are important in the common
property institution and high levels of trust and cooperation between members are necessary
to reduce these transaction costs. Furthermore, collective action on communal lands enables
communities to share ideas on how best to manage their resources to ensure sustainability.
12.10 Changes in markets and marketing under institutional pressures
As a result of poor planning and inappropriate procedures for beneficiary selection,
the land reform programme in Zimbabwe resulted in drastic decline in production and
productivity in the agricultural sector. At the same time, the perceived political agenda of
the process sparked off a reaction in the investment climate that manifested in worsening
balance of payments, reduction in industrial production, and growing unemployment. It
is safe to conclude that the Zimbabwean land reform programme resulted in an economy-
wide decline in effective demand occurring simultaneously with a sharp fall in physical
agricultural output as appropriated farms lay idle and poor farm practices depressed
productivity levels. A low-equilibrium trap thus ensued, culminating in the deterioration of
livelihoods across the broad spectrum of society as a hyper-inflationary situation developed
and assumed scandalous proportions.