This report on the state of industrial oil palm plantations in West and Central Africa shows how communities are turning the tide on a massive land grab in the region. Between 2000 and 2015 companies signed oil palm plantation concession agreements with African governments covering over 4.7 million hectares;mostly without the knowledge of the affected communities. These companies are now struggling. There has been a significant decline in the number and total area of land deals for industrial oil palm plantations over the past five years;from 4.7 to a little over 2.7 million hectares.

Argues that the role of the European Union in landgrabbing is manifold. EU actors are involved in the financing of large-scale land deals worldwide through forms of private finance;public finance and a combination of both. The EU’s position as an agricultural powerhouse is dependent on the huge import of agricultural commodities and inputs from the global South. Europe has a vast land import dependency with nearly 60% of the land used to meet Europe’s demand for agricultural and forestry products coming from outside its borders.

Africa’s Catholic bishops have criticized the appropriation of land;natural resources and other economic assets by private companies and called on national governments to show greater concern for local community rights and needs. They said: ‘The impunity of corporate and elite capture of African land and natural resources and the damage this is doing to Africa’s food systems;to our environment;our soils;lands and water;our biodiversity;our nutrition and health is a major concern.

A report by Global Agriculture examines the agricultural impact of multinational land deals (aka ‘land grabbing’) which are found to be directly harmful to local food security and livelihoods. It describes the phenomena as when: “These international investors;as well as the public;semi-public or private sellers;often operate in legal grey areas and in a no man’s land between traditional land rights and modern forms of property.

Writers have guest-edited an African Studies Review forum on Understanding Land Deals in Limbo in Africa which examines the contentious politics of incomplete land grabs in Senegal;Tanzania and Zambia. These studies show that even when land deals are cancelled;stalled;downsized;transferred to new owners;or stay dormant and speculative for many years;they can still produce far-reaching consequences that often go unnoticed. The complex interplay of land governance;local political dynamics and capital’s own contradictions can push land deals in different and unexpected directions.

This guide provides companies involved in wind and solar projects with information and strategies to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for adverse human rights impacts that they cause, contribute to, or are directly linked to through their operations, products, or services, by virtue of their business relationships. It may also be useful for investors, business partners, government actors, civil society organizations, communities, and other stakeholders.

This legal risk primer provides the general counsels and corporate legal teams of commercial wind and solar companies with an overview of the key legal risks that may arise from the above community-related human rights impacts. It is a companion to CCSI's business guide on the same topic.

This publication serves as an introduction to a collection of articles published in the African Studies Review. It discusses the implications of as well as the question through what actors, processes, and relationships land deals become stalled or partially implemented. The reviewed articles draw on long-term, in-depth ethnographic research of land deals in Senegal, Tanzania, and Zambia. 

After more than ten years of hectic debates on international ‘land grabs’, academic interest in collapsed land deals or projects with unexpected results is growing. According to the Land Matrix, Tanzania is one of the target countries for such deals, with a number ‘abandoned’ or delayed and projects whose status is unknown. Labelling land deals as ‘failed’ poses conceptual and methodological challenges as long as the criteria for ‘failure’ are undefined.

The land rush has remained, and is likely to remain, a significant global phenomenon despite waning international media attention. The scope of the phenomenon is likely to be wider than previously thought.