Election 2019: Land reform, agriculture and climate

In this series, we look at what the manifestos of political parties say on certain key issues.



ALL PEOPLE'S PARTY (APP)

• Compensation for the German genocide and the resettlement of the Ovaherero, Nama and Damara.

• New technologies for the rejuvenation of abandoned agriculture projects.

• Community trust should own between 45% and 50% of green schemes.

• Promotion of poultry and aquaculture industries.

• World-class abattoirs for excluded communities.

• Promoting green energy, preventing soil, water, vegetation and air degradation.



CONGRESS OF DEMOCRATS (CoD)

• Access to commercial agricultural land.

• Urban land for everyone.

• One-off land purchase allowance for everyone.



LANDLESS PEOPLE'S MOVEMENT (LPM)

• Radical land and agricultural reform to eradicate poverty and hunger and create jobs.

• Every claim for ancestral land must be considered independently.

• 30 days' notice to absent landowners for expropriation without compensation.

• One farmer, one farm.

• Expropriation in the public interest.

• Restoring agriculture as an economic driver in rural areas.

• Better support to small farmers.

• Massive investments in science and technology that will promote agriculture.

• N$1 billion a year to the Ministry of Climate Change and Green Energy.



NAMIBIA ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS (NEFF)

• Expropriate land without compensation and redistribute it.





NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY (NDP)

• Revisit original land boundaries and return stolen land.

• Traditional leaders must control communal land.

• Free seed and irrigation systems to municipal farmers near rivers.

• Grants for municipal cooperatives.

• Agricultural factories in all regions, towns and settlements.

• Agricultural universities, colleges and training centres, as well as the provision of equipment, materials and capital.



NATIONAL UNITY DEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION (NUDO)

• The recognition of ancestral land rights.

• No land ownership by foreigners.

• Equal distribution of state land.

• Climate-smart agriculture.

• Incineration plants and green schemes in the Namib Desert.

• Climate-smart cities and towns.



POPULAR DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT (PDM)

• Expropriation with fair compensation.

• Negotiations on ancestral land.

• Security of tenure and ownership of productive land use.

• Land ownership by foreigners or the possession of multiple farms must be managed by taxes and levies.

• Provide unproductive state-owned land to farmers with potential.

• Focused support for modern agriculture and other inequalities initiatives.

• More frequent audits of relocated farmers' infrastructure.

• More cooperatives and agricultural producer organisations.

• Desalination plants along the coast.



RALLY FOR DEMOCRACY AND PROGRESS (RDP)

• Faster, more efficient and non-corrupt land reform.

• A dedicated fund for relocation, land acquisition, infrastructure development, mentoring and training.

• A clean and safe environment free of pollution.

• Fight the destruction of the ecosystem and forests.



REPUBLICAN PARTY (RP)

• Help people who lost land in colonial times.

• Remove the racial nature of the land conversation.

• Food security must come first.



SWANU

• A socialist government will expropriate land without compensation and control all natural resources.

• An end to foreign and private ownership that promotes poverty and hardship.

• Renewable energy sources to take centre stage.

• Coastal desalination plants to supply the entire country with water.



SWAPO

• Speed up amendments to the law on land reform and the implementation of the decisions of the second national land conference.

• Improvements to the willing seller, willing seller policy.

• Criteria for the provision of commercial agricultural land to emerging farmers, members of marginalised communities and farmworkers

• 687 000 hectares of additional municipal agricultural land for people in the Otjozondjupa, Omaheke, Oshikoto, Kavango East and Kunene regions.

• Climate-friendly investments in water and energy infrastructure.

• Climate change research and the full application of the 2007 Environmental Management Act.

• Better standards for waste management.



UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT (UDF)

• Everyone has the right to land, not just the ones who can afford it.

• Acquisition and redistribution of land.

• Very high taxes for foreign landowners, limit such ownership to a fixed period and extend only with application for Namibian citizenship.



WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY (WRP)

• Restoring ancestral land rights to restore people's dignity.

*Where parties are missing, their manifestos were not yet available.