Why is AFRA's work necessary?

Why is AFRA's work necessary? Land in KwaZulu-Natal (and in South Africa) is conflicted, and in this the land rights and human rights of the poor are usually undermined. Between 1948 and 1982, about 450 000 people in rural Natal were forcibly removed from their homes and their land in terms of apartheid legislation. AFRA was started in 1979 to assist rural communities in their struggle against this. Since the election of a new government in 1994 and the removal of apartheid legislation, AFRA's work has focused on assisting rural communities to regain the land which they lost, and ensuring that their land and development rights are upheld during these processes. In 1995 the government showed its intention to correct land injustices when it introduced the Land Reform Programme with its three key foci of redistribution, restitution and tenure reform.  However, a decade and a half on, this process has not delivered what was expected of it, and is progressing very slowly, much to the growing frustration of landless people. The government has failed to alter the skewed land ownership patterns in the country, thus denying rural Africans access to ownership of land and related resources. Generally, the State tends to operate in favour of minority elites who own and control most of the productive land. In spite of an apparent land transformation in South Africa, there is an increasing number of indigent people working in sub-human conditions on farms, going to sleep without any food, having limited or no access to basic services such as water and electricity, and living with no proper shelter.  Addressing these challenges, when they are addressed at all, is done largely on a local level by local municipal structures. This means that the poor must ensure that their needs are expressed and heard at these local levels to be able to benefit from the resources available. However, the reality is that most landless rural communities are not given this opportunity, and therefore do not receive any of the benefits which are rightfully theirs.

The Problem Of The Broader Context Facts & Figures On Poverty In Kwazulu-Natal 50% of the people of KwaZulu-Natal are considered to live in poverty. The following give an indication of living conditions: · 9% of households live in informal dwellings, and 22% live in       traditional dwellings. · 61.2% of rural households are without electricity; and 57% use wood for cooking food. · Only 35.2% of households have a tap within their dwelling, and 52.3% have no flushing or chemical toilet