The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) is pleased to offer two grants of $10,000 each for innovative uses of www.OpenLandContracts.org, the world’s first searchable online repository of publicly available commercial agriculture and forestry contracts. The grants are offered to support and advance innovative uses of the repository and of the content available through it.
OpenLandContracts.org was launched in October 2015 to promote greater transparency of land-based investments, facilitate a better understanding of the contracts that govern them, and provide useful tools for governments, communities, companies, and other stakeholders. The repository provides the full text of contracts, as well as plain language summaries of each contract’s key social, environmental, human rights, fiscal, and operational terms. By early 2016, OpenLandContracts.org will host more than 100 contracts from around the world, as well as associated documents and other resources that help users understand and assess such contracts. OpenLandContracts.org is a joint project of CCSI and the World Bank, and is supported by UKaid from the Department for International Development. More information can be found on our website: http://www.openlandcontracts.org/about.
For this mini-grants program, we seek proposals for projects that make use of OpenLandContracts.org to promote more sustainable investments in agriculture or forestry, support different stakeholders in understanding land-based investments and their implications, or provide new insight into such investments.
Applications must be submitted via email or sent in hard copy format by regular mail. Please note that applications must be received by CCSI on or before March 31, 2016.
For further information, please see the Program Announcement & Guidelines and the Application Form, both available for download from CCSI’s website. Please direct any questions about the mini-grants program to Jesse Coleman (jcoleman@law.columbia.edu, +1 (212) 854-7408).
The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), a joint center of Columbia Law School and the Earth Institute at Columbia University dedicated to the study, practice and discussion of sustainable international investment. As a partner in DFID’s LEGEND program, CCSI has created tools and conducted a suite of practice-focused research concerning the following topics as they relate to large-scale land-based investments in the global south.