The key objectives of the Livelihoods after Land Reform (LaLR) study were to gauge the livelihood implications of redistributive land reform, to generate insight as to why land reform performs the way it does, and to identify well-grounded recommendations as to how policy and/or practice might change. A unifying theme of LaLR is that the implications of land reform for livelihoods must be sought at different levels and via various routes.

For the case of South Africa, which is one of the three southern African countries that were the focus of LaLR, our attention was mainly directed at the post-apartheid government’s land reform programme in Limpopo Province. This seminar will focus on people and projects, with the main purpose being to explain why different sorts of people are involved and impacted in different ways according to the government’s diverse implementation approaches.