THE most satisfying realisation about Bill Gates’ acknowledgement that land reform is the way to go was that 15 years after the programme was launched in Zimbabwe, the Robert Mugabe factor still maintains its ability to shape global opinion.
In the beginning, it was British scholar Professor Scoones of Sussex University to admit that the Land Reform Programme was a success.
The critical question becomes: where are our own scholars and influential people to support and defend the Land Reform Programme?
Given Bill Gates’ position and standing in his country, this could be America speaking.
Gates belongs to an elite grouping of people that influence American thinking.
He is the world richest man.
He is the face of America in global economics.
And America is among those countries that oppose Zimbabwe’s Land Reform Programme.
We do not hold any brief for Gates, but the brutal truth is that his endorsement comes a little too late.
That is the problem with white capital.
It endorses policies, programmes and grievances when it suits them.
Gates gave the thumbs up to land redistribution in his review of Joe Studwell’s book, How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic Region, in a blog titled: ‘Can the Asian Miracle Happen in Africa?’ 15 years after President Mugabe had borne the brunt of a sustained media onslaught and illegal economic sanctions.

The book explains why some Asian countries developed rapidly and others did not, according to Agro economics expert and Sussex University Professor Ian Scoones.
Gates summarises the findings.
“(Studwell) offers a simple, three-part formula:
1. Create conditions for small farmers to thrive.
2. Use the proceeds from agricultural surpluses to build a manufacturing base that is tooled from the start to produce exports.
3. Nurture both these sectors (small farming and export-oriented manufacturing) with financial institutions closely controlled by the government”.
Few have ever gone that far in their assessment of President Mugabe’s policies but, as a startlingly similar series of thrashings against Zimbabwe unfolded since the inception of the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme, the sense of a Western world mired in delusion grew harder to escape. 
Insanity, they say, is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.
Until Gates’ poser on land reform, America had insanely repeated, sometimes bizarrely tried to tarnish the programme, but the Mugabe factor remained intact.
Thank you Gates, but as Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa noted in his article in the latest issue of The Sunday Mail, where is our Strive Masiiwa?
Zimbabwe was battered for giving land to its owners, but there was no defence or support of the programme from our own business elite.
President Mugabe was brutalised for settling the emotive land issue.
There are several crucial factors to consider from Gates’ assessment of land redistribution.
For an economy to grow, land must be in the hands of the majority.
President Mugabe noted this years ago.
In an interview he held with the Zimbabwe News magazine in 1979 President Mugabe said land was the deepest of Zimbabweans’ grievances and that his Government would give it top priority upon taking over the country.
“Yes, yes that’s the number one thing we must do as a Government on taking over (Power)…. Land is the deepest of all grievances,” he said.
This was further captured by the President and ZANU PF in 1980 through their 1980 Election Manifesto.
The Manifesto highlighted the centrality of the issue of land when it said:
“It is not only anti-people, but criminal for any Government to ignore the acute land hunger in the country, especially when it realised that 83 percent of our population live in the rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihood.”
So in line with President Mugabe and ZANU PF’s mandate of realising ‘People’s Power’, the new Government launched the first phase of the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme in 1980 with a target of resettling 162 000 families.
Unfortunately, they managed to resettle only 70 000 families on acquired land amounting to 3,5 million hectares.
The thrust of the programme, which by 1985 had seen Government adopting an integrated approach to land reforms which focused both on translocating identified settlers while at the same time undertaking to re-organisation in communal areas so the benefits of the decongestion exercise would quickly show was to rehabilitate and bring a broken nation together through giving back land to its rightful owners
The Government swiftly embarked on a programme of Land Redistribution, through resettlement, increased agricultural productivity through infrastructural development, reduction in former extension ratio and increased Agricultural Finance Corporation loans to communal farmers.
As a result there was an unprecedented surge in agricultural productivity with marketed surplus in maize increasing from a mere 80 000 tonnes before 1980 to 400 000 tonnes in 1982.
Second, support to farmers is key in the establishment of functioning manufacturing industry.
Despite being hamstrung by sanctions, Zimbabwe has continued to do well in this area and prospects for development are high.
It is important for Zimbabweans to embrace their own programmes not to wait for the likes of Bill Gates to endorse these initiatives.
Where are our people?
Let those with ears listen.