Resisting, frustrating or embracing the urban agenda: Chieftaincies in Southern Africa examined constitutionally and statutorily

Abstract

There is no comprehensive scholarship, which compares cases of how chieftaincies foster or hinder urban land use in Africa. What seems to exist are disparate pieces of literature focusing on different cases without offering a diagnostic picture of the way constitutions and statutes have been crafted across regions. The paper advances the argument that urbanisation is a reality and a sweeping force across the terrain of the global regions, Africa included. Proponents (such as Mbiba, 2017; Freund, 2007; Cirolia, and Berrisford, 2017) have argued that the best way to deal with urbanisation is to ensure a smooth transfer of land from chiefdoms into municipal areas, which inevitably and inadvertently ‘eat into the land of the chiefs’. A case study methodology was used through which the various national constitutions and ‘chief laws’ for selected countries were examined in terms of provision, hence the application of thematic content analysis of the documents. The selected case study is Zimbabwe. Among other issues explored in this study, it emerged that these states make the land delivery process cumbersome when chiefs dictate the pace of urban development. The study recommends the attenuation of the powers of chieftaincies based on collaborative negotiation for the sake of sustainable urban development.