Facing land grabs and eviction in the name of development, women worldwide increasingly join land rights struggles despite often deeply engrained images of female domesticity and conventional gender norms. Yet, the literature on female agency in the context of land struggles has remained largely underexplored. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, my findings suggest that land rights activism in Cambodia has undergone a gendered re-framing process.

Much has been written on land deals, their impact and challenges of contestation in the Global South. Multiple studies show that communities are high-spirited as long as they oppose the actual conversion of their land. My findings illustrate, however, how companies, local authorities, communities, civil society and the government mitigate conflicts, re-shape resource governance, and negotiate terms of development in operating plantations and local-global dynamics thereof.

In sub-Saharan Africa, commercial bioenergy production has been hailed as a new form of ‘green capitalism’ that will deliver ‘win-win’ outcomes and ‘pro poor’ development. Yet in an era of global economic recession and soaring food prices, biofuel ‘sustainability’ has been at the centre of controversy. This paper focuses on the case of post-war Sierra Leone, a country that has over the last decade been consistently ranked as one of the poorest in the world, facing food insecurity, high unemployment and entrenched poverty.

With the proliferation of civil wars since the end of the Cold War, many developing countries now exist in a "postconflict" environment, posing enormous development challenges for the societies affected, as well as for international actors. Postconflict Development addresses these challenges in a range of vital sectors—security, justice, economic policy, education, the media, agriculture, health, and the environment in countries around the globe.

In peace-building and transitional justice literature economic restoration is considered central to sustainable peace in post-conflict societies. However, it is also widely recognised that many post-conflict states cannot afford mechanisms to provide restoration. Not only are many such states poor to begin with, but violent conflict further degrades their economic capacity. As a result, in their need to provide jobs, generate tax revenues, spur development and promote sustainable peace, many post-conflict states turn to alternative processes of economic restoration.

Sierra Leone recently attracted significant inflows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in export-oriented mining and agribusiness. These investments have usually involved large-scale land deals with local communities that have been facilitated and brokered by government officials, local politicians, and paramount chiefs. Affected people and communities were supposed to receive compensations for lost land and, in addition, they expected to find gainful employment opportunities with multinational companies.

Land acquisitions continue to be an important trend

Large-scale land acquisitions continue to be an important issue for governments, development organisations, NGOs and farmers’ organisations all over the world; this remains the case even in times of global economic slowdown, recession and crisis. The scale of this trend and its significant impacts on rural transformation and livelihoods make it necessary to further monitor, observe and positively influence such deals wherever possible.

Since 2009, Oxfam and others have been raising the alarm about a great global land rush. Millions of hectares of land have been acquired by investors to meet rising demand for food and biofuels, or for speculation. This often happens at the expense of those who need the land most and are best placed to protect it: farmers, pastoralists, forest-dependent people, fisherfolk, and indigenous peoples.

 

Based on data from the Land Matrix database, this paper briefly analyses large-scale land acquisitions in the context of current complex and dynamic land and climate governance discourse. The paper tries to explain the inter linkages between land and climate governance, within the water-food-energy nexus, and the increasing and important role for science, technology and innovation in agriculture in order to become more resilient to current and future challenges in climate and land governance.

EBG Capital was appointed by the German Development Agency (GIZ) to obtain case studies from selected agricultural investment funds (predominantly private equity investors) to determine “best practice” in Responsible Investment (RI) in agriculture and the use of international RI principles and guidelines to achieve this. We requested a case study of a practical (“on-the-ground”) investment in farmland from 33 agricultural investors from around the world.

In the last decade the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has transformed itself into a provider of natural resources (timber, agricultural products, minerals, and energy) for its wealthier and more populated neighbours China, Vietnam and Thailand. 

Land Investments in Indonesia