Implications of land restitution as a Transformative Social Policy for Water-Energy-Food (WEF) insecurity in Magareng Local Municipality, South Africa

Saul Ngarava

Land Use Policy, 2023, vol. 133, issue C

Abstract: The objective of the study was to assess the impact of land restitution policy on water, energy, and food insecurity in South Africa. The study utilised a cross-sectional survey of 1 184 households from Matatiele, Greater Taung and Magareng Local Municipalities. The Household Water Insecurity Experience, Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index and Household Food In-access Scale were used to analyse water, energy, and food insecurity, respectively, while Propensity Score Matching was used to assess the impact of benefiting from land restitution on insecurities in these resources. The results of the study indicate that beneficiaries of land restitution were relatively more water secure but were however somehow food secure and energy insecure. Furthermore, educational levels, tenure, employment status, household size, gender and main source of income were significant determinants of becoming a beneficiary of land restitution as well as the water, energy, and food insecurities. In addition, benefiting from land restitution increased water and energy insecurities by 15.0% and 24.2%, respectively, while reducing food insecurity by 10.1%. The study concludes that land restitution has improved the food security status of the beneficiaries while it has reduced their water and energy securities. The study recommends augmenting the indigent policy supplementing poor households with free water and energy to improve securities, especially for land restitution beneficiaries. Promotion of renewable energy such as solar, which can provide a nexus in energy for water supply can aid in improving localised water and energy securities for land restitution beneficiaries.

Keywords: Impact; Land restitution; Propensity Score Matching; South Africa; Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF); Transformative Social Policy (TSP); Water-Energy-Food (WEF) insecurity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837723003447
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:133:y:2023:i:c:s0264837723003447

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106878

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().