Community-Integrated GIS for Land Reform

As the end of the 20 century grows nearer, South Africans find themselves entering the postMandela era. Five years after the first democratic government was elected in South Africa, the euphoria of transformation and reconciliation has receded. In its place has come the hard reality that the social and spatial impacts of colonialism and apartheid run very deep. Since the transfer of power in June of 1994, there have been improvements in basic service provision for many South Africans, particularly in electricity and water provision. But the redistribution of economic and environmental resources has expectedly been rather slow. Transformation is now increasingly viewed as requiring decades of political, economic and attitudinal change. Understanding this, the South African people have again voted to empower the African National Congress (ANC) in the nation’s second democratic and non-racial election.