Land rights in South Africa

Recipient organization
The Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE) is an umbrella organization of regional civil society groups in South Africa which has existed for decades. The organization has said its greatest challenge is "to find ways of restoring people′s hope in their ability to bring about change and to take control of their own destinies."

Project description
During apartheid, non-whites were permitted to use only 13% of South Africa′s agricultural land. This was one of the main reasons for their poverty. From the end of apartheid until 2005, only 3% of the land previously reserved for whites had been redistributed, contrary to earlier promises. Accordingly, the large majority of the rural population is still living in abject poverty.

For years, the TCOE has been organizing the comprehensive, multi-level campaign Land is Life for a more just distribution of land, for the rights and the dignity of the poor and for the South African public to give land issues a higher priority. The activities include grassroots work in many communities, participatory action research on living conditions and prospects in rural areas and interventions at the national and international levels.

Financing the entire campaign would have exceeded the capacity of Umverteilen! by far. But we have been able to provide support at individual points that either came up at short notice and which the TCOE had not been able to integrate in its long-term budgets, or which did not match the funding policies of larger donors. In some cases, we were able to respond very quickly.

For example, Umverteilen! supported:

• a photo exhibition on the situation of people in rural areas which was shown first, very successfully, in many cities of South Africa and was later presented internationally. Wherever the exhibition was displayed, comprehensive media work and actions were carried out. Exhibition photos are also presented here on the Africa working group′s web pages.


• the establishment of the Mawubuye Land Rights Forum intended to develop strategies in Western Cape Province that could be used as models to support the country-wide campaign.


• mobilizing the land-rights movement for regional and national land-rights summits scheduled at very short notice by the government of South Africa in the summer of 2005. When public pressure became too strong, the government obviously wanted to demonstrate that it was taking action, but at the same time did not want to include the grassroots movements. That plan was foiled.

Reports and material
Reports and other material can be requested from info@tcoe.org.za