REFRAMING SOCIAL POLICY IN AFRICA: LAND REFORM, YOUTH AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC WELFARE IN
ZIMBABWE

REFRAMING SOCIAL POLICY IN AFRICA: LAND REFORM, YOUTH AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC WELFARE IN
ZIMBABWE

TOM TOM

At a time when scholars and practitioners in Africa and the broader Global South are rethinking social policy in search of inclusive development and exploring pathways for averting extraversion, focus on youth and land is essential. Both land (with its appended natural resources) and the youth are the facilitators and guarantors of current and future development. The article is based on data gathered through a sequential mixed methods approach in two rural districts of Zimbabwe (Mangwe and Zvimba in Matabeleland South and Mashonaland West provinces respectively) within the “Social Policy Dimensions of the Land and Agrarian Reform in International Perspective” research project. Setting the article apart from the dominant discourse in social policy framed by the Welfare Regime Paradigm or the Social Protection Paradigm, is adoption of the concept of Transformative Social Policy whose thrust are the social policy instruments of countries outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) context and their capability to resolve the structural causes of inequality, marginalisation and poverty. In this context, the article addresses four questions: a) What were the antecedents and objectives of the fast track land reform? b) What are the “youth gaps” in Zimbabwe’s land reform? c) How has access to land by the youth influenced socio-economic wellbeing at individual and household levels? d) How can the transformative outcomes of land reform – redistributive, productive, protective, reproductive and social compact – be improved through and for youth, and all? Overall, the article shows that land reform is a social policy tool, and the youth are central to improving its development outcome

The Zimbabwe Open University Journal of Applied Social Sciences

2026