Leaping the fissures | Land Portal

Informations sur la ressource

Date of publication: 
mai 2000
Resource Language: 
License of the resource: 

This archival paper takes a hard look at the claim that Communal Property Institutions established as part of South Africa's land reform programme are failing. It argues that there are no meaningful indicators against which assessments of success or failure can be made. It asserts that the tenure security of the group and its members should be the primary purpose of land reform CPIs because secure tenure is the primary mechanism for reducing risk for vulnerable people and is the universal need of the group.


It argues that CPIs need to be developed from adaptations of current known and accepted local practices within a broader environment in which there is legal, institutional and technical coherence and support for this approach. Without an enabling legal, institutional and technical framework, the tenure security of members of CPIs will not be significantly improved. It is political choice that informs whether or not this will take place.

Auteurs et éditeurs

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Tessa Cousins and Donna Hornby

Publisher(s): 

LEAP came into existence in 1988 when a group of KwaZulu-Natal land practitioners from NGOs, government and the private sector began to focus on why the communal property institutions (CPIs) set up under land reform appeared to be failing. The Legal Entity Assessment Project, as it was initially known, questioned the widely held view that the land reform communal property associations (CPAs) and trusts needed capacity building.

Concentration géographique

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