Johannesburg — SO OFTEN when we talk about the poor, talk is where it remains. We talk empathetically and with exasperation about the history and the structural conditions that rob fellow human beings of their dignity and potential, but it seems no amount of hand-wringing can break the cycle of misery.

So we turn to government. Poverty, after all, is the prevailing legacy of apartheid and poor people the intended main beneficiaries of government's transformation policies.

Government, in turn, has identified land reform as central to the alleviation of poverty. The programme, begun with the passing of legislation in 1996, has three main elements: restitution of rights through the land claims process; the redistribution of land via acquisition to develop a black farming middle class; and securing tenure for people living on the land of others.

A survey by the nongovernmental land-reform organisation Nkuzi Development Association shows that 90282 households have benefited since the land restitution process began, while 66360 households have benefited from land redistribution.

While the restitution and redistribution processes have their share of apparently intractable problems, people who have no historical land claims or access to tribally held land, and have little or no chance to benefit from redistribution of farms, are the most vulnerable. In 2001, the national census tells us, 2,9-million black people were living on other people's farms and smallholdings, most of them in poverty and without security of tenure.

Three laws -- the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act (LTA), the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (Esta) and the Prevention of Illegal Eviction and Occupation of Land Act (Pieola) -- have been enacted to protect them. Yet only 7543 people have won tenure in terms of LTA and Esta and, despite the terms of Pieola, 942303 people have been evicted between 1994 and 2004, Nkuzi's survey shows.

That is 200000 more than in the preceding nine years, during which 737114 people were evicted -- an irony that will not be lost on those who oppose land reform. Of a total of more than 1,6-million people evicted, only 1% resulted from a legal process.

When a group of people illegally occupy a piece of land, start small gardens and produce a surplus, and we then call it a successful land reform, government should be worried about its programme. It means that the various laws, policy papers and innumerable fresh initiatives have amounted to nothing.

This example was cited by Nkuzi's programme manager, Marc Wegerif, who was responding on Thursday to a series of papers delivered under the auspices of the Southern African Regional Poverty Network.

The squatters described by Wegerif had developed their lives and their illegally held land without help from anyone, including government. In fact, all they got from government was harassment, said Wegerif.

In 2001, when 3000 squatters were evicted from a farm in a peri-urban area in Bredell on the East Rand, government was instrumental in their removal, despite the farmer's willingness to sell the land to government to allow the people to remain. These cases illustrated government's failure to capture people's initiative and was indicative of a general paralysis at land affairs, said Wegerif.

The papers assessed a range of conditions affecting people without security of tenure, including legislation, intensification in agriculture and increasing competition for land, and presented case studies illustrating the obstacles.

Respondents to the papers representing government, labour, organised agriculture, emerging farmers and poverty advocacy groups agreed on two things: there were "gaps in the legislation" and "more work was needed".

Annelize Crosby, representing farmers' body AgriSA, said organised agriculture was working with labour and that it would be "part of the solution, not the problem". The big problem, as she saw it, was conflicting rights.

Neither Crosby nor Phillip Khage, labour federation Cosatu's representative, would disclose anything about their co-operation.

The director of tenure reform at land affairs, Sipho Sibanda, admitted that there was a degree of paralysis in government, but said the minister was constrained by the letter of the law.

And so it goes, until each representative has "committed" their organisations to "being part of the solution", uttered a quota of clichés and darkly alluded to the spectre of a Zimbabwe-style land grab. Another round of talking ends without a plan or resolution.

Perhaps the departing Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza, and the seemingly endless number of people who make a living from talking about the poor, will have cause to reflect on the book, The End of Poverty, in which the author Jeffrey Sachs asks whether the rich can afford to help the poor and replies with the more pertinent question: "Can they afford not to?"

After all, the minister did use the quote to open her address to the Land Summit held in Johannesburg last year.