Host governments seeking to address the grievances of people adversely affected by land-based investments must navigate a complicated landscape of legal obligations and pragmatic considerations. Provides an overview of practical solutions for governments confronting land grievances, considered in the context of the constraints and obligations imposed by international investment law, international human rights law, domestic law, and investor-state contracts.

An analysis of the gendered impacts of commercial pressures on land, based on a review of the literature and ILC’s country case studies, including Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda and Benin. In the present global context of increasing pressures, women are both likely to be affected differently to men by large-scale land deals and disproportionately more likely to be negatively affected than men because they are generally vulnerable as a group.

Analyses the configuration of land rights among different users of land and discusses the implementation of Tanzania’s land policy reform. The key rights explored include those of small-scale producers (farmers and pastoralists) and large-scale investors. Explores how the state defines, allocates, protects and compensates for land when it appropriates such rights. Looks at the formal, informal and procedural rights that provide for and protect the rights of small-scale producers and investors, and the compensation offered to those who give up their land for investment.

Includes water mining: the wrong type of farming, when the Nile runs dry, the Niger, another lifeline at risk, selected African land deals and their water implications, hydro-colonialism?, virtual water, grabbing carbon credits, stop the water grab.

Eight years after releasing its first report on land grabbing GRAIN publishes a new dataset documenting nearly 500 cases of land grabbing around the world. Includes what exactly does the data tell us?, despite many failed deals, the problem is real, the food security agenda is still a factor driving farmland deals, agribusiness expansion is the main objective, the financial sector is a big player,offshore and illicit finance underpin these deals, farmland grabs are also water grabs, cause for hope: resistance is growing.

Despite growing research on land deals in Ethiopia, there is still uncertainty on the real scale and features of the phenomenon, and some misperceptions continue to shape public debates. Report discusses the findings of a systematic inventory of land deals for agricultural investment in Ethiopia. It describes the scale, geography, drivers and key features of large-scale deals. It also discusses findings relating to the early outcomes of the deals.

International investment treaties are an important part of the legal frameworks governing foreign investment. This report measures the extent to which they apply to agribusiness investments initiated as part of the recent wave of large-scale land deals in low and middle-income countries. It finds that 70% of ‘land grab’ deals worldwide are protected by at least one investment treaty. Public action to terminate, renegotiate or regulate land deals could expose states to the risk of treaty-based arbitration claims.

Investors often look for land with a high growing potential, which means land with lots of rainfall or land that can be irrigated. In multimillion dollar investments involving irrigation, investors typically want to secure water rights as part of the deal. Motivated by potential revenues from water fees and the prospect of improved agricultural productivity, many African governments are signing away water rights for decades to large investors. But they are doing so with little regard for how this will impact the millions of other users whose livelihoods depend on customary access to water.

Summary: Includes land acquisitions continue to be an important trend; a need for this new, updated report; agricultural land acquisitions are increasingly becoming operational; food crops dominate but also palm oil and fuel crops; Africa is the most targeted continent; large diversity in origin of investors; land acquisitions often target relatively highly populated areas dominated by croplands; local communities are often bypassed in negotiations, limited information on displacement and compensation; a need for further monitoring.

Includes how much land is being acquired, and by whom?; over the heads of local people: who are the parties to the deal?; the economic disequilibrium of the contract: what resources, in exchange for what?; what safeguards for local people and the environment?; discussion. Drawing on legal analysis of 12 land deals from different parts of Africa, discusses the contractual issues for which public scrutiny is most needed, and aims to promote informed public debate about them.

Covers world agriculture, a changing context; scale and geography of the phenomenon, key players; the nature of the land deals, process and terms; implications for local land access; conclusion and recommendations.

For many millions in the developing world, land is central to livelihoods, food security, even identity – the result of a direct dependence on agriculture and natural resources. It is not surprising that a recent wave of large-scale land acquisitions in Africa, Central and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America has sparked a major debate. The briefing provides an analysis of this complex and shifting situation, focusing on Africa.