A review of four recent articles about an underexplored issue: the reasons for large-scale land deals to fail and what that means for communities and society
By Monica de Souza Louw, Land and Accountability Research Centre (LARC), University of Cape Town
* This piece was originally published as part of the online discussion on customary law in Southern Africa
It was good land. Before the company’s arrival in 2011, the people of Ngovokpahun village had used it to grow cocoa and other cash crops to help them pay for their children’s education. But when Italian Agriculture offered to build them a school, health center, and roads, provide them with employment, and pay rent, leasing out the land seemed like the wiser option. The company drafted the agreement and the landowners signed.
In a recent episode of the podcast Uncharted Ground, host Jonathan Levine spoke with Namati about building a global environmental justice movement. You can find it on any major podcast platform or listen to the episode (and access the full transcript) on Stanford Social Innovation Review's website. A recap of the episode, written by SSIR, is below.
This week an important new book on ‘The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons’ was launched by IDRC and African Minds.
Deciding whether or not to allow an investor to use community lands and natural resources is one of the most important decisions a community can make. Namati and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) have published two new guides to help communities prepare for interactions with investors and, if they so wish, negotiate fair, equitable contracts. These guides are the first of their kind.
Last spring Africa’s biggest sugar producer, Illovo Sugar, adopted a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to land grabs. In November, it published a roadmap for how it plans to implement it.