Welcome to Vumelana
Partnerships for land reform
Vumelana is a non-profit organisation that helps communities in the Land Reform Programme to develop their land. It funds advisory services to structure commercially viable partnerships between communities and investors that create jobs, income and skills.
Vumelana aims to demonstrate the value of markets and partnerships as a means of increasing access to land that can be used productively, improving land tenure, and providing linkages to finance, skills and networks needed to make effective use of land. This encourages a more inclusive agenda for land reform.
Our impact
Since 2012 Vumelana received over 450 enquiries requesting support to develop Community Private Partnerships. To date, 23 partnership agreements have been concluded for communities with the potential of attracting some R800m of investment and create or save more than 2,300 jobs.
An additional 14 projects are currently in progress.
Click here to read more on the projects that Vumelana have supported to date.
How do we work?
Vumelana: To agree with one another, make a contract with one another, support one another.
Vumelana supports the development of commercially viable partnerships between commercial partners and communities that acquired access to land under the Land Reform Programme.
The model is designed to provide transaction advisory services at no cost to the community and recover the cost from investors only if deals are successfully concluded. The reimbursed funds are used to finance governance and organisational development support to the community.
Vumelana’s model explained in 6 steps:
Step 1: Applications for funding are received from communities, government departments, advisors or investors.
Step 2: A co-operation agreement is signed with the community setting out the basis of the relationship between the community and Vumelana.
Step 3: A transaction advisory team is contracted to structure an agreement in terms of which the community makes the land available and the investor undertakes to finance and manage operations.
Step 4: The transaction advisory team procures proposals from potential investors which show how the land will be developed to create jobs, income, skills and other benefits for community members.
Step 5: Once an agreement is signed, the investor reimburses Vumelana for the costs incurred by the transaction advisory team in putting the deal together.
Step 6: The reimbursed funds are used by Vumelana to finance support for the Communal Property Institution for a period of up to two years.
Land Reform Futures scenarios
What could happen to land reform in South Africa by 2030?
In 2015, Vumelana completed the Land Reform Futures Scenarios, which explored what could happen in South Africa’s land reform programme by 2030. The Land Reform Future Scenarios are designed to trigger an open and constructive search for strategic responses to thorny questions on land reform in South Africa.
Visit www.landreformfutures.org to read more on the scenarios.
