Monday 15 April 2013

[wanabidii] Rebels urge Tanzania to scrap sending UN troops to DRC



Good People,
 
 
This is a violation to terrorize and invade a country illegally and
unconstitutionally with an intention to force people out of their
land in the event, stealing peoples land, natural resources and water. This the corporate robbers through the use of organized thugs abusive conspiracy kill innocent people and commit serious crime against peoples Human Rights. This action is also against the International Treaty of Human Rights and all good people and leaders of the world must come together to intervene
and stop the Corporate Special Business Interest to stop this wild demonic criminal and selfish greediness behavior.
 
 
 
All peoples lives are valuable and African people should not be driven to slaughter house like they are lesser human beings.
Legal Action must be applied fairly to all without applying tactics of discrimination, and those found guilty must face the law and pay for the crime they committed against the poor Africans.
Africans too need to live a life of dignity, value and honor and it is pathetic that in this 21st Century Africans are treated with such scorn.
 
 
 
Enough is enough and things must begin to be done differently and all who care must begin to take action now against this brutal crimes on Africans.
 
 
 
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
 
 
 

Rebels urge Tanzania to scrap sending UN troops to DRC

The head of the M23 Congolese rebels, Roger Lumbala, signs documents on February 6, 2013 at a press briefing in Kampala, Uganda. Photo/AFP

 

 
The head of the M23 Congolese rebels, Roger Lumbala, signs documents on February 6, 2013 at a press briefing in Kampala, Uganda. Photo/AFP AFP

Posted Saturday, April 13 2013 at 10:12
The Right to Food: Corporate, Foreign Gov't Land Grab Causing Hunger in Poor
Uploaded on Oct 28, 2010
 
 
 
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, speaks to Democracy Now! about his recent warning that some 500 million small farmers in poor countries are suffering from hunger, partly because foreign countries and corporations have bought up large tracts of land. We're also joined by Smita Narula, author of a new study suggesting that many of the land deals in Africa and South Asia lack transparency and could threaten local communities with eviction, undermine their livelihoods, and endanger their access to food.

For the transcripts and more information, visit www.DemocracyNow.org.

Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit
www.DemocracyNow.org/donate
CNN) -- A new report published this week claims farmers in Africa are being driven off their traditional lands to make way for vast new industrial farming projects backed by European hedge funds seeking profits and foreign countries looking for cheap food.
But some firms named in the study are hitting back, saying they are providing desperately needed jobs and cash to impoverished regions on the continent.
The Oakland Institute, a left-leaning social development think tank, says investors have bought up nearly 60 million hectares (148 million acres) since the financial crash in 2009 -- land equal to the size of France, in what it calls a "land grab" in Africa.
"The same financial firms that drove us into a global recession by inflating the real estate bubble through risky financial maneuvers are now doing the same with the world's food supply," said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute.
"It's kind of shameful that while we in the Western world paint Africa as a basket case -- we talk about its hunger, we talk about its corruption -- but we are responsible for trying to steal the land and turn it into a breadbasket for the North" Mittal said, referring to developed economies.
The report, "Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa," focuses on seven African nations and claims to uncover a tangled web of deals being obscured by shell companies and governments.
It concludes that the alleged "land grab" is leading to the potential displacement of hundreds of thousands of farmers, often in deals with far-off government bureaucrats or naive local tribal chiefs.
"We're told over and over that the key to development is by helping small farmers," Mittal told CNN. "But instead, in this rush for mechanized farming, for growing bio-fuels, for growing grains for export, we seem willing to sacrifice women farmers and indigenous communities with no solutions for what happens later to them in Africa."
The study by the California-based group pins much of the blame on London-based Emergent Asset Management, which runs one of Africa's largest land acquisition funds, and is headed by former JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs currency traders and investment bankers.
European and U.S. agribusinesses are singled out for buying hundreds of thousands of hectares for future biofuel development.
And the report says the current rush for cheap land is also backed by China, Libya and other Mideast and Asian investors looking for ways to secure food sources and farming for their growing populations.
But Mittal says she was most surprised to discover deals by U.S. universities that she claims are investing in deals set up by hedge funds buying up some of the continent's best farmland on promises of annual returns of 25% or more.
Universities such as Harvard "have chosen to go ahead just so they can see their endowments grow," Mittal said. She called on university backers to honor goals of socially responsible investing and to hold back money in a campaign similar to the one that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa.
"It's time to get out of these funds and invest in ways that build communities and don't devastate them," she said.
Some of the companies and investors named in the report are disputing the claims.
"The allegations set out in the Oakland Report are grossly inaccurate," wrote Emergent's CEO Susan Payne in a statement e-mailed to CNN. "We are consulting our lawyers and will be issuing a full statement rebutting the allegations."
A spokesman for Harvard said he was unable to find any direct documentation for the claims in the study, and was seeking clarification for any involvement on its part from the firm that handles its endowment.
The report essentially says investors are being promised cheap land with no questions asked while the hedge fund buyers are searching for ways to displace traditional farms that often have no clear formal ownership for small fees and promises of employment.
The study's authors say that land in the war-torn Sierra Leone sometimes leased for as little as $2 per hectare.
"Foreign investors often employ local 'agents' or 'coordinators' to identify land for lease and negotiate leases with local communities, chiefs and landowners," the report charges.
"There is evidence that these 'agents' take unfair advantage of local traditions, perceptions and vulnerabilities in order to convince local populations that they will benefit from the lease deals, while refraining from discussing potential risks such as loss of farmland or negative environmental impacts," the report says.
Mittal pointed to Zambia, where she claims that 94% of the country's land is held informally through customary rights, and where land use and ownership must be negotiated with local chiefs.
"I was told that you would go with a bottle of Johnnie Walker, sit on the ground with him and clap three times and make your offering of whiskey," Mittal told CNN. "Then you have secured the title to the land with no problem."
The study also points to programs in Ethiopia where hundreds of thousands are being driven off their traditional lands and placed in new government-planned villages, while foreign investors move in to start new export-driven farms.
"We have seen cases of speculators taking over agricultural land while small farmers, viewed as 'squatters,' are forcibly removed with no compensation," Frederic Mousseau, policy director at the Oakland Institute, said in a press release.
"This is creating insecurity in the global food system that could be a much bigger threat to global security than terrorism," Mousseau added. "The majority of the world's poor still depend on small farms for their livelihoods, and speculators are taking these away while promising progress that never happens."
However, one investor group tied to Emergent in South Africa says that the projects it backs are boosting incomes and market access in places once totally cut off from anything beyond growing enough food for themselves.
"We've really created something out of nothing in Africa," said Anthony Poorter, Africa director for EmVest Asset Management. "There are no shady deals."
He pointed to three land projects his firm backs in Mozambique, including a $12 million, 1,000-hectare farm (2,471 acres) that employs 350 people and provides rising income to the surrounding area.
"Our projects in Mozambique have caused a real boost to the income of local communities," Poorter said, pointing out EmVest tries to source as much of its labor and supplies locally as possible.
"The GDP of Matuba village has risen significantly and we are the biggest employer."

Poorter summed it up by saying, "We have people lining up for jobs every day, so it can't be that bad a place to work."

 

 

 


World Bank to Strengthen Focus on Land Rights

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/world-bank-to-strengthen-focus-on-land-rights/

 

 

 

Sunday, April 14, 2013

 
 
Women farmers in Bangladesh are opting for climate-proof crop varieties. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

Women farmers in Bangladesh are opting for climate-proof crop varieties. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

WASHINGTON, Apr 8 2013 (IPS) - The World Bank will be placing stronger emphasis on issues of land tenure and socially and environmentally sustainable agricultural investing, it announced Monday.
The bank, one of the world's largest development lenders, also formally reiterated its concern over the large-scale corporate "land grabbing" that has affected vast swathes of Africa in recent years.
Without these guidelines, we'd be left with anarchy.
"The World Bank Group shares these concerns about the risks associated with large-scale land acquisitions," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement from the bank's Washington headquarters Monday.
"Securing access to land is critical for millions of poor people. Modern, efficient, and transparent policies on land rights are vital to reducing poverty and promoting growth, agriculture production, better nutrition and sustainable development."
Following on decades in which agricultural sectors were almost completely bypassed by international investors – including bilateral donors and multilateral lenders such as the World Bank – recent years have seen a surge of interest across all types of investors and development institutions.

Related IPS Articles

On Monday, Kim noted that the World Bank, too, had stepped up its agriculture-related investments, but warned that "additional efforts must be made to build capacity and safeguards related to land rights – and to empower civil society to hold governments accountable."
Ahead of a four-day annual World Bank conference on land and poverty here this week, the institution stated that it expected the global population to grow by two billion by 2050, requiring an expansion of global agricultural production of 70 percent.
While the institution is reiterating longstanding calls for significant new public and private investment in both small-scale and large agricultural operations, it has warned that "investment alone will not be enough" to attain these levels.
Rather, citing spiking food and fuel prices coupled with the looming uncertainties of climate change, the bank is urging the adoption of stronger national and international standards on investments and land rights as a way of helping farmers across the globe raise yields.
"Usable land is in short supply, and there are too many instances of speculators and unscrupulous investors exploiting smallholder farmers, herders and others who lack the power to stand up for their rights," the bank notes. "This is particularly true in countries with weak land governance systems."
As such, the bank will now be strengthening efforts aimed at improving land governance, protecting the rights of landowners, and promoting policies "that recognise all forms of land tenure and help women achieve equal treatment in obtaining land rights".
Growing global discussion
Particularly following the rise in both global food-price volatility and demand for biofuels over the past half-decade, agricultural land has become a lucrative commodity for international investors, who have focused particularly on Africa.
According to 2011 research by the bank, some 60 million hectares of land in developing countries were purchased or leased by private sector investors in 2009 alone, a process that has continued. In many cases, local civil society organisations have warned that these transactions are being carried out with government complicity and without following international standards on stakeholder inclusion.
"There's been a tendency recently towards governments giving large plots of land to international investors for free or at concessional rates, thinking that doing so will fast-track development," Nicholas Minot, a senior research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute, a Washington-based think tank, told IPS recently.
"To some degree there's logic to that, but there is a huge question as to whether that land was owned by the government or whether it was previously occupied by small-scale farmers without titles. Establishing secure land rights for people in rural areas is a massive but critical issue."
Organisers say that this week's World Bank conference on land and poverty – the 14th – is the largest they've ever put on, and includes participation by government officials from several countries. Bank officials also say that the conference's focus, titled "Moving towards transparent land governance", is indicative of a new global discussion on the issue.
"This year we have dozens of sessions on issues of land governance, transparency and implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines, which wouldn't have been as prominent four years ago," Jorge Munoz, a land tenure adviser for the World Bank, told IPS.
"This is not a new subject for the bank, but it has become much more prominent globally – though clearly some countries are much more interested in increasing transparency for improving land governance than others."
As part of the bank's scaling-up on the issue, Munoz points to the institution's rollout of a new tool with which governments are able to get a snapshot analysis of their current land tenure and related laws. Called the Land Governance Assessment Framework, Munoz says 33 countries have now started to use it.
In addition, the bank is now assisting in implementing new international guidance, approved in May under the auspices of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), called the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security.
According to USAID, the Untied States' central foreign assistance agency, at least 22 countries have now requested technical assistance on implementing the Voluntary Guidelines. Although the project is still in a pilot phase, a "zero draft" of the guidelines is to be released within the coming month.
"Voluntary regulations don't always work, of course, but in this case these guidelines may be the only way to solve the problem of ensuring that small-scale farmers don't get abused and are able to access lands they may have used for generations," Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank, a Washington think tank, told IPS.
"Without these guidelines, we'd be left with anarchy. Still, governments and consumers now need to take the initiative to push corporations to take this seriously."
The bank is also involved with another FAO process to develop an international set of Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment, aimed at offering global guidelines on socially and environmentally sustainable investments in agriculture.
In recent years, some civil society groups have questioned the bank's own part in facilitating large-scale land acquisitions (including here and here), particularly that of its private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Yet Munoz says much of this criticism has overstated the institution's role, which he suggests has focused less on financing than on offering technical assistance on reforms.
"There is a major global problem with land-grabbing," says Munoz. "The bank's role is, essentially, to be leaders in assisting countries in improving land governance and improving the behaviour of private investors."

World Bank Urges African Agriculture Rethink

A woman weeds a sesame crop field in South Sudan's Eastern Equatoria state. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

A woman weeds a sesame crop field in South Sudan's Eastern Equatoria state. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

WASHINGTON, Mar 6 2013 (IPS) - The World Bank is urging African governments to retool their agriculture policies, particularly to include a far greater focus on agribusiness as a critical driver of future development.
The bank is now projecting that African agriculture could triple in economic size in coming years, topping a trillion dollars by 2030, powered by massively increasing domestic and international demand. With Africa by some counts the world's fastest-growing economy, middle-class demand for food is set to quadruple by 2030, to more than 400 billion dollars.
"After years of neglect, agriculture is once again seizing the attention of African governments, business leaders, communities, and development donors, as a powerful driver of the continent's relentless growth," Makhtar Diop, the World Bank's vice-president for Africa, wrote in the forward to the new report, released Monday by the bank's Washington headquarters.
"[W]e cannot overstate the importance of agriculture … Africa now stands at a crossroads, from which it can take concrete steps to take on a much bigger role in both the regional and global markets or continue to lose competitiveness – missing a major opportunity for structural transformation."
While African farmers currently contribute the single largest component to the continent's annual economic growth, their sector has for decades been seen as failing to reach its full potential.
"On almost any metric – yields, level of exports, contribution to gross domestic product – African agriculture does underperform," Nicholas Minot, a senior research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute, a Washington-based think tank, told IPS.
"A big part is because this agriculture is mostly being carried out by small-scale farmers who don't have the cash to buy fertiliser and other inputs, even where it's available."
As a result of this and the continent's relatively poor soils, Africa exports several key commodities that only grow well in the tropics, including coffee, tea and cocoa. But for most grains and many food crops, its countries are either barely self-sufficient or forced to import.
According to the World Bank, crop yields in Africa are just half the averages in Asia and Latin America. Meanwhile, the report notes, "Africa's agricultural growth derives largely from opening new land to agriculture, with negative consequences for biodiversity, forests and soils."
Scaling up and down
Even as agriculture is again receiving belated consideration from African governments and donors, "their attention should extend to agribusiness," the report urges. "The attention focused on production agriculture will not achieve its developmental goals in isolation from agribusinesses, ranging from small and medium enterprises to multinational companies."
"Agribusiness" refers to the full spectrum of the sector leading to and following agricultural production, including the processes that get raw farm food products into the hands of consumers and money back to farmers. Already, agriculture and agribusiness together make up nearly half of Africa's gross domestic product.
"Absolutely, if the continent wants to become more self-sufficient, farmers need to be recognised as businessmen and businesswomen and entrepreneurs with innovative approaches to marketing crops and improving food security," Danielle Nierenberg, the co-founder of Food Tank, a Washington think tank, told IPS.
But Nierenberg also warns against focusing too much attention on creating jobs and incomes through crops for export.
"Greater investment is needed to increase the production and consumption of vegetables, leguminous crops and perennial crops to increase both food security and incomes," she says.
Indigenous crops, too, though often looked down upon by many middle-class consumers, tend to be both rich in micronutrients and resistant to disease, flooding and drought. As climate change takes a more significant hold on Africa, these crops will become increasingly important and economically valuable.
Further, Nierenberg notes that any greater state or donor attention placed on agriculture and agribusiness will need to maintain – or strengthen – a priority on small-scale farmers, particularly women.
"For Africa or any other developing country to succeed, there needs to be more focus on smallholders, family farms and woman farmers," she says. "While agrodealers or small- and medium-sized seed and other input suppliers are growing across the continent, few of them are women."
Likewise, notes IFPRI's Minot, Africa already hosts significant agribusiness activities, albeit at very small scale. In line with the World Bank's emphasis on the need for a full spectrum of agribusiness sizes, Minot warns against African governments rushing to invest solely in mass-scale processing capability.
"For now, that's fine," he says. "These tiny mills are relatively efficient, low cost and there's no reason any government should be subsidising large mills to come replace them."
'Key challenge'
Maintaining a priority on the small scale has already proven difficult for many African countries. The continent currently has more than half of the world's unused agricultural lands, which over the past half-decade has led to a massive increase in attention from international investors.
"Private sector interest in African agribusiness is unprecedented," the bank notes. "The past decade has witnessed an upsurge in interest from the private sector in African agriculture and agribusiness, including interest from foreign investors and investment funds."
In recent years, the World Bank itself has come in for civil society criticism (including here and here) for the role it has reportedly played in promoting large-scale "land grabs" by foreign investors keen on purchasing swathes of African agricultural lands on which to grow monocultured crops for export.
The bank has repeatedly denied such allegations, and the new report devotes significant space to the need for strong environmental and social safeguards and land security systems.
"The challenge is to harness investors' interest in ways that generate jobs, provide opportunities for smallholders, respect the rights of local communities, and protect the environment," the report notes.
"Going forward, a key challenge is to curb speculative land investments or acquisitions that take advantage of weak institutions in African countries or disregard principles of responsible agricultural investment."
In counteracting the potential for land-grabbing, IFPRI's Minot says that one of the most important priorities is to establish secure land rights for rural families and communities.
"But that's a very long, tedious and technical process," he says. "Today, it's a process that is indeed going forward, but it's certainly not rushing forward."

'Money Wasted Without Policy'

BRUSSELS, Apr 11 2013 (IPS) - As European Commission leaders make calls for EU countries to raise their spending on development aid for the world's poor, groups working in underdeveloped states have warned that without more effective aid policies and networks, extra financing may be wasted.
Speaking as the European Report on Development (ERD) – an independent report prepared by NGOs and commissioned by EU member states – was launched Tuesday, European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs told journalists: "I was shocked and disappointed when it became apparent that there had been a trend of developing nations reducing their aid spending in recent years.
"This trend must be reversed, we must do more and raise our development aid financing."
But assembled speakers at the launch event in Brussels were quick to point out that rich nations must look very carefully at the wider development agenda if they are to get "value for money" from their aid contributions.
Dr Debapriya Battacharya, Chair of Southern Voice on Post-MDG International Development Goals – a network of more than 40 think tanks from South Asia, Africa and Latin America, told IPS: "Just giving money to poorer countries and telling them to meet some arbitrary targets is a 'lose-lose' situation for all involved.
"The donor states' taxpayers do not get value for money if nothing is changed and it is no good for the developing countries if they get money but can't use it to their own requirements."
The report, among other things, outlines a role for the EU in a future global development aid framework post 2015 when a replacement for the UN's Millennium Development Goals is hoped to be introduced.
A recent study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed spending of official development assistance in its member states had fallen by 4 percent last year in real terms, following a 2 percent drop in 2011.
In some individual EU states the falls have been dramatic. In Spain, overseas aid funding is at its lowest level in 22 years.
There has been widespread criticism of the fall, and European Commission (EC) officials speaking at the launch of the ERD made constant references to the need to reverse the trend.
NGOs which have been critical of governments cutting back on development aid to meet domestic austerity targets agreed that rich countries needed to up their aid spending.
But they said that simply increasing aid financing would not be enough.
Gerard Vives, European coordinator for the European NGO CONCORD's 'Beyond2015' campaign, told IPS: "The European Union must champion a global framework that places people at its centre. This means focusing on human rights and accountability. The framework must be accompanied by robust accountability mechanisms at all appropriate levels so that people can hold their governments to account for commitments made.
"Emerging consensus on a framework that tackles poverty and sustainability together is important as these issues are inextricably linked."
But leaders and NGOs from some of the world's least developed countries say that rich countries' approach to development aid, while ostensibly well-intentioned, can often be flawed.
They complain that there is a lack of understanding about the development needs of individual countries and that setting arbitrary targets or goals internationally is not always useful at a local level.
Battacharya told IPS: "Any global development aid framework must be aligned to national needs, although how that is to be done is a great challenge and something for which there is no easy answer."
And there is a feeling among some groups that richer countries, including those in the EU, do not listen carefully enough to the voices of those in poorer nations about aid.
Battacharya told IPS: "This whole post-2015 debate is about a balance of power and there is a definite asymmetry of power in favour of the North, notably in terms of knowledge. There is an elaborate process of consultation going on but it does not necessarily produce critical knowledge.
"We need to make sure that voices are brought in from the South where we know from experience what has worked and what has not from the MDGs."
However, the ERD does address some of these issues directly, making clear that any aid will be misspent unless it is used to help create 'sustainable and inclusive' development, including, among others, creating long-term job opportunities, addressing climate change and global financial transparency, inequality, lack of social inclusion and justice.
But some experts are unconvinced that this is the right approach to take and that it could in fact make it harder to raise development around the globe.
Jan Vandemoortele, a co-architect of the MDGs and now an independent author and lecturer, told IPS: "There is a misconception that the MDGs mismatched with national targets. But if you go to individual countries, you see that they have adapted the MDGs to their own targets, sometimes higher than the global targets, and sometimes lower, depending on their individual income.
"Not every country has to hit MDG targets for the world to fulfil the global target. If we all do our bit the global target is met."
He added: "Now, everyone around the table wants their issue included in the new replacement for the MDGs. That cannot work. Someone has to make a decision to leave something out. You have to ask is the new framework about a means to a development end or about the ultimate end itself? I think it has to be about the ultimate end itself and issues like trade and finance are a means, not an end, and they should be left out.
"I am not confident that a new global framework will be found. It has become very politicised with so many governments using it to push national or regional agendas."
Are African land grabs really water grabs?
By Jennifer C Franco, Lyla Mehta and Gert Jan Veldwisch, Special to CNN
updated 12:19 PM EDT, Fri March 22, 2013
Women in Kenya's Tana River delta, where there have been tensions over land and water access.
Women in Kenya's Tana River delta, where there have been tensions over land and water access.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Large-scale land deals in Africa can be seen as "water grabs, write three researchers
  • Taking land for development often has implications for for local people's water rights
  • Jennifer Franco, Lyla Mehta and Gert Jan Veldwisch ask: Who has the right to the water in a river?

Editor's note: Dr. Jennifer C Franco is coordinator of the Agrarian Justice program at the Transnational Institute, Netherlands, and an adjunct professor at the China Agricultural University in Beijing.
Dr. Lyla Mehta is a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, UK and a Visiting Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
Dr. Gert Jan Veldwisch is assistant professor at the Water Resources Management Group of Wageningen University.
Together they have edited a special issue of
Water Alternatives on Water Grabbing.

(CNN) -- Millions of hectares of land have been acquired in the past few years across Africa by investors who are moving into large-scale agriculture to take advantage of potential windfall gains. Popularly these deals have become known as "land grabbing," but they could just as well have been framed as "water grabs."

The current global rush for agricultural land grew partly in response to increased global food prices since 2007. Global capital is finding its way to agricultural investments on the basis of expectations of high returns, either through increased production or through speculation on further rising land prices.

Dr. Jennifer C Franco
Dr. Jennifer C Franco
Dr. Lyla Mehta
Dr. Lyla Mehta
Dr. Gert Jan Veldwisch. Photo courtesy pixed.nl
Dr. Gert Jan Veldwisch. Photo courtesy pixed.nl
(There are serious socioal Justice questions)

Optimistic promises that such investment would also reinvigorate depressed rural economies, by virtue of employment creation and improved livelihoods, have proven to be vastly overstated, if not unfounded in many cases. But one of the untold stories of the global land grab is the quest to capture one of the most vital resources: water.

As land is grabbed and earmarked for development, this often has implications for the water nearby, for local people's land and water rights and environmental sustainability.

All around the world powerful actors (transnational as well as national) are pointing out that the lands in which they invest are "marginal" and "unproductive" lands. This has been shown to be untrue for many cases; either the land is already used by small-scale food producers, or is of prime quality and associated with good (potential) access to water.

Read this: The myth of Africa's land grab

In the Tana Delta for example, the Kenyan government marked the Tana river basin for development, designating the floodplain area as "unused" and the adjacent terraces as "empty dryland" with irrigation potential.

But this region has long been home to small peasant farmers, fishers and pastoralists from different ethnic groups, whose cooperative sharing of fragile land and water resources over the years has been possible because of delicately balanced customary use rights agreements amongst themselves.

In most countries where land deals are taking place it is no use having land without also having access to water.

Jennifer C Franco, Lyla Mehta and Gert Jan Veldwisch

The violence last year in the Kenya's Tana region demonstrates the perils -- and tragedy -- of ignoring more complex social realities that exist on the ground.

In most countries where land deals are taking place it is no use having land without also having access to water. Research published in a special issue of Water Alternatives has shown water to be one of the prime drivers of the global rush to acquire land. Despite this, many land deal contracts -- or the prior environmental assessments upon which they ought to be based -- do not explicitly mention water requirements, let alone quantify them.

The issue of water grabs is a particularly slippery one. Unlike land, water flows and moves from one place to another; its availability goes up and down, affected by the seasons, human use, or climate change; it can be visible on the surface and invisible underground. It can be a source of food, or disease and pollution. Rights, access and uses are complex and varied. Who has the right to the water in a river -- the people who live beside it in a given place, the farmers who depend on it for irrigation, or those upstream or downstream?

Read this: One woman's mission to fix water crisis

Water's elusive nature makes it a prime target. The boundaries between legality and illegality are often fuzzy, and questions of jurisdiction over water can be unclear. Grabbers often take advantage of this legal complexity. In Ghana, according to research by the International Water Management Institute, the separation of land and water rights created the space for water grabbing: pre-existing customary water rights were abolished and instead ownership, management and control of water were placed under authority of the state.

Similarly, water-quality impacts reach far beyond the place of pollution. A case in point is a large-scale land deal in the Iringa Region of Tanzania under a lease-agreement with the government. According to a paper published by Italian NGO Acra, fertilizers, pesticides and faeces of cattle led to the contamination of downstream drinking water sources serving a population of some 45,000 people.

Questions of jurisdiction over water can be unclear. Grabbers often take advantage of this legal complexity.
Jennifer C Franco, Lyla Mehta and Gert Jan Veldwisch

Proponents of large-scale land deals deploy powerful narratives of underutilized land and water resources that "require" investment to "unlock" their potential, or an abundance of water and land, ready to be woken up by commercial agriculture. But it is at least debatable if the targeted land and water resources are indeed unused or even underutilized.

The narratives of "unexploited resources" provide justification for governments to displace existing users of resources and the ways in which smallholder farmers use their water remain unrecognized some can create new scarcities for others.

The hidden aspects of water grabbing do not just make it a very "slippery" terrain, but also imply that large-scale land acquisitions all around Africa actually can be understood as "water grabbing." That we call this a process of grabbing does not mean that these deals are strictly illegal, but there are serious underlying social justice questions.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jennifer C Franco, Lyla Mehta and Gert Jan Veldwisch.

 

 

 

 

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