The land shall be shared amongst those who work it!
Despite significant progress made over the last 15 years, people living in rural areas continue to face the harshest conditions of poverty, lack of access to land and basic services. The ANC is committed to a comprehensive and clear rural development strategy linked to land and agrarian reform, improvement of the conditions of farm workers and farm-dwellers and builds the potential for rural sustainable livelihoods. The ANC government will:
- Intensify the land reform programme to ensure that more land is in the hands of the rural poor and will provide them with technical skills and financial resources to productively use the land to create sustainable livelihoods and decent work in rural areas.
- Review the appropriateness of the existing land redistribution programme, introduce measures aimed at speeding up the pace of land reform and redistribution and promote land ownership by South Africans.
- Expand agrarian reform programme, which will focus on the systematic promotion of agricultural co-operatives throughout the value chain, including agro-processing in the agricultural areas. Government will develop support measures to ensure more access to markets and finance by small farmers, including fencing and irrigation systems.
- Ensure a much stronger link between land and agrarian reform programmes and water resource allocation and ensure that the best quality of water resources reach all our people, especially the poor.
- Ensure that all schools and health facilities have access to basic infrastructure such as water and electricity by 2014.
- Introduce the provision of proper sanitation systems in the rural areas.
- Strengthen partnership between government and the institution of traditional leadership to focus on rural development and fighting poverty.
- Work together with the farming community to improve the living conditions of farm dwellers, including the provision of subsidized houses and other basic services.
- Provide support for organised labour to organise and unionise farm workers and increase the capacity of the Department of Labour to enforce labour legislation.
