‘Land Grabbing’ in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Contexts CRITICAL REFLECTION

Title‘Land Grabbing’ in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Contexts CRITICAL REFLECTION
Annotated RecordAnnotated
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsGraf A, Kruckow C, Gemperle S
Secondary TitleKOFF Roundtable of November 27th 2012
Pagination1-8
PublisherCenter for Peacebuilding (KOFF), Swiss Peace Foundation (swisspeace)
Key themesDispossession-grabbing, Formalisation-titling
Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Large-scale land acquisitions are a reality in most regions worldwide. Vast areas of land are leased to foreign as well as national investors on a long term basis of 30-99 years. A growing number of reports, referring to this practice as ‘land grabbing’, show that these mostly very intransparent deals tend to go along with corruption, forced evictions and other human rights violations as well as enhanced competition over water. The challenges associated to the large scale land acquisitions are even heightened in conflict-prone regions, where property of and access to land and water often are among the key dividing issues. Swiss organizations in development and peace promotion are facing various negative impacts of land acquisitions in their projects. Powerful economic and political interests reshape patterns of water and land management in regions where land acquisitions take place. Local land users in different project areas are pressured or forced to give up the land they are cultivating and living on. The organizations themselves and their local partner institutions face various threats when engaging in advocacy work on the issue. This roundtable on conflict sensitive water and land management assembled representatives of Swiss civil society and state agencies. They debated the implications of land acquisition on their work as well as their responses. The event featured the two country cases of Ethiopia and Cambodia, where negative consequences of land acquisitions on development and social peace are particularly prevalent. Moreover, the participants discussed to what extent the newly developed FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (hereafter: FAO VG on Tenure)1 are a useful tool to confront the negative consequences of land acquisitions in these and other country contexts. This report picks out some of the main issues discussed at the roundtable, adds some further thoughts of the authors and refers to a limited number of additional sources. The first section looks at the two most prominent ways in which adverse effects of land acquisitions are addressed: supporting land titling processes and advocacy. The second session reflects the debates on the potential of the FAO VG on Tenure as a tool to fostering sustainable land and water management.
URLhttp://www.swisspeace.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/KOFF/KOFF_FriEnt_Land_Grabbing_in_Fragile_and_Conflict-Affected_Contexts.pdf
Availability

Available for download
Countries

Cambodia
Document Type

Conference Proceedings

Annotations

Overall relevance: 

The paper provides a critical review of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation’s (FAO) Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. While commenting on the strengths of the guidelines, and the potential it has to effect positive change in the current situation, the paper also articulates its weaknesses, giving a succinct and reflexive analysis of the ways in which the guidelines may be harnessed to exploitative agendas of state actors and powerful elites. Ultimately, the authors advocate for further development of the document.

Key Themes: 
  • Civil society and donor engagement in land issues - NGOs and civil society play a pivotal role in the landscape of tenure and titling, providing access to networks, research, advocacy, and fostering linkages between local groups in order to strengthen the capacity for resistance to dispossession. Yet they are facing increasing persecution from governments, who are intensifying restrictions on their freedoms. This exacerbates the already significant problem of limited access to accurate data, and points to a larger trend in which political space to challenge dispossession is shrinking.
  • Land dispossession/land grabbing - Contradiction exists within the rationale which champions formal land titles as the most effective method of increasing security of tenure. Private title is exclusive at the point in which it is granted, and enables participation in speculative real estate markets where title-holders alone hold ultimate decision-making power. Whilst prosperous land-owners may become more secure, poor farmers are made particularly vulnerable as they become pressured to sell land in the face of increasing debt or hardship. In this way the most vulnerable households become dispossessed of their land, with no legal recourse, as they are complicit in their own dispossession.
  • Land rights recognition/formalization/titling/collective tenure - One of the key contributions of the FAOs voluntary guidelines is that it addresses the complexity and plurality of tenure arrangements, and advocates for the inclusion of customary tenure. Yet, the FAO’s formal position on increasing food security advocates for investments, which are predicated upon private formal title.
Research basis: 

This policy brief is based on a multi-stakeholder roundtable in which representatives of Swiss civil society and state agencies came together to discuss how large scale land acquisitions and land deals had negatively affected their various development projects, and to what extent the voluntary guidelines are an effective tool for addressing these issues.