Just Access: The Real Democracy - Episode 2: Whose Land, Whose Decision?

And following on this line of thinking and beyond the horizon, the immediate horizon of the election in November, how can municipalities ensure that land decisions include marginalized people and people who hold rights to land in the ways that you and Daniel speak about?

One of the things that municipalities need to do is to provide information.

Municipalities need to have the land information at its own fingertips so that it can share it with stakeholders, not just these people.

So I'll give an example.

We work with one municipality in Pumalanga.

And we were asking them, where is the information about the land held? And the LED department has kind of its own roster and format.

Town planner has got maps.

The valuation department has got information about land.

Other information is held by private sectors who have more money.

They do the...

So municipalities have to pay for that information.

And we're actually asking the town planner, like if somebody in Sweden said, wants to come and do a just transition investment here, is there a place where they can see what land is available? And he said, some of the information is existing in his head.

So municipality itself needs to have a diary of where the land is held.

And then they need to be able to share that with the communities that need to use this land.

And then from that, they need a process for engaging with communities when they need to use the land that these unregistered landowners hold, are residing on.

And one of the processes...

It's called FPIC.

It's Free Prior Informed Consent.

So it means communities should have access to the land information freely and must be given that information before a development takes place.

And they should give their own consent freely, but there should also be a right for the communities to say no.

But, of course, that's one instrument that I would say the political parties should think about using with the communities.

Just to also add on that, as you mentioned, there are changes underfoot that go beyond this election cycle.

There's currently a major policy review of the policy framework around local government.

There's a review of the white paper.

One of the significant proposals it makes is that In more rural municipalities, municipalities have to interact with traditional leaders who in practice exercise land allocation roles.

And following on this line of thinking and beyond the horizon, the immediate horizon of the election in November, how can municipalities ensure that land decisions include marginalized people and people who hold rights to land in the ways that you and Daniel speak about?

One of the things that municipalities need to do is to provide information.

Municipalities need to have the land information at its own fingertips so that it can share it with stakeholders, not just these people.

So I'll give an example.

We work with one municipality in Pumalanga.

And we were asking them, where is the information about the land held? And the LED department has kind of its own roster and format.

Town planner has got maps.

The valuation department has got information about land.

Other information is held by private sectors who have more money.

They do the...

So municipalities have to pay for that information.

And we're actually asking the town planner, like if somebody in Sweden said, wants to come and do a just transition investment here, is there a place where they can see what land is available? And he said, some of the information is existing in his head.

So municipality itself needs to have a diary of where the land is held.

And then they need to be able to share that with the communities that need to use this land.

And then from that, they need a process for engaging with communities when they need to use the land that these unregistered landowners hold, are residing on.

And one of the processes...

It's called FPIC.

It's Free Prior Informed Consent.

So it means communities should have access to the land information freely and must be given that information before a development takes place.

And they should give their own consent freely, but there should also be a right for the communities to say no.

But, of course, that's one instrument that I would say the political parties should think about using with the communities.

Just to also add on that, as you mentioned, there are changes underfoot that go beyond this election cycle.

There's currently a major policy review of the policy framework around local government.

There's a review of the white paper.

One of the significant proposals it makes is that In more rural municipalities, municipalities have to interact with traditional leaders who in practice exercise land allocation roles.