The controversial Gibe III dam in Ethiopia, for example, will help irrigate 150,000 hectares that the government has allocated to investors. A report published by the African Development Bank says the project could lower the water level of Kenya's Lake Turkana, on which around half a million people depend, by eight metres by 2024.

Africa's great 'water grab'

Foreign investors aren't just after land in Africa. Access to water is essential – which can bring them into direct competition with the needs of local communities



Passengers in a pirogue watch Fulani herders cross the Niger river with their cattle on the outskirts of Mopti, Mali. Photograph: Florin Iorganda/Reuters

The banks of the Niger river, in southern Mali, have been flooded by a steady stream of foreigners. Coveted by foreign investors eager to snap up large tracts of fertile farmland, the river basin has been at the centre of a race to get hold of African land at rock-bottom prices. Meanwhile, last week, hundreds of smallholder farmers and civil society activists flocked to the same river basin for the first international conference to tackle the global rush for land.

West Africa's largest river, the Niger is thought to sustain over 100 million people as it snakes 4,180km through Guinea, Mali and Niger before emptying into Nigeria's colossal Niger Delta. In Mali, the Office du Niger is home to the vast majority of the country's largescale land deals, seen by campaigners as emblematic of the "land grabs" taking place in developing countries. Recent estimates suggest that foreign investment in Mali's limited arable land jumped by 60% between 2009 and 2010. But the potential knock-on effects of these land deals on local communities' access to water has rarely made it centre-stage.

Ongoing research from the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development seeks to redress this blindspot, honing in on how such land deals might affect water access for fishing, farming and pastoralist communities. In a policy paper out on Thursday, the IIED's Jamie Skinner and Lorenzo Cotula warn that an alarming number of African governments seem to be signing away water rights for decades, with major implications for local communities.

Investors in farmland are, understandably, after land with high growing potential – either land with lots of rainfall or land that can be irrigated. What Skinner and Cotula note is a worrying trend where governments are being rushed into signing away water rights during negotiations where they were initially only considering leasing land.

In many cases, say Skinner and Cotula, governments seem willing to simply provide water free of charge. In Mali and Sudan, for example, some investors have been given unrestricted access to as much water as they need. In other cases, where investors must pay to use water, they are often charged according to how much land is irrigated rather than how much water is used.

The role water plays in fuelling the global rush for land has received significant attention. It is no coincidence, observers say, that the most aggressive foreign investors are also those facing water shortages at home. This year, risk analysis firm Maplecroft said the results from its water stress index showed why India, South Korea and China, along with the oil rich Gulf states, are racing to buy land in developing countries and grow crops abroad. The chairman and former CEO of Nestlé, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, has gone so far as to say the global rush for farmland is actually a "great water grab". He writes in Foreign Policy: "With the land comes the right to withdraw the water linked to it, in most countries essentially a freebie that increasingly could be the most valuable part of the deal."

But the effect of these deals on local communities' water access has been a black hole in the debate around land grabs. And it is a severe omission, according to Skinner and Cotula, who stress how long-term contractural commitments with investors can jeopardise water access not only for those living near the agricultural investments but also for those living downstream. "When land is assigned to private investors, the deal only impacts directly on existing users of that land," they explain. "Allocating water to irrigated agriculture potentially affects a much broader range of users."

A 2011 report from researchers at the University of Manchester highlights similar concerns: "Impacts are likely to be far more extensive than might be anticipated from the area of land occupied … restriction or interruption of flows of water in an area occupied in one part of the landscape will have potentially widespread downstream impacts."

According to the IIED paper, in some cases estimates of potential water requirements have run so large that major dam projects are being considered to ensure supply. The controversial Gibe III dam in Ethiopia, for example, will help irrigate 150,000 hectares that the government has allocated to investors. A report published by the African Development Bank says the project could lower the water level of Kenya's Lake Turkana, on which around half a million people depend, by eight metres by 2024.

In an earlier review of land deal contracts, Cotula noted that leases in semi-arid countries would be worthless to investors without access to sufficient water for agricultural use. But just as land without water may be useless to agricultural investors, the same goes for local communities. Will future water conflicts be triggered by the downstream effect of today's land grabs in Africa? Land, it seems, is only a small part of the land grab equation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-develo ... sfeed=true

You must be the lowesT IQ mosquito on this forum. You never have anything of your own to say apart from copy-pasting garbage after garbage.

You must be the lowesT IQ mosquito on this forum. You never have anything of your own to say apart from copy-pasting garbage after garbage.

Nice tux Banda Allula. You were born to serve your Arab masters.

The author has revealed that woyanes have signed a final and binding agreement with the land-grabbers that was presided by the World Bank to prevent any future government in Ethiopia from taking back the lands "leased" to land-grabbers for the next 99 years. Damn !

Ethiopia is a member of several international agreements that reduce risk for foreign investors, such as the World Bank's Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States, which details international arbitration procedures for disputes with foreign investors, and the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, which insures foreign investors against potential political risks including expropriation and war damages.

Land Grabs and the World Bank

Joshua Pringle
November 16, 2011


A farmer in Ethiopia's Ghibe Valley. (Photo: International Livestock Research Institute)

The United Nations estimates that the global population will grow to 9.2 billion by 2050 (from 7 billion now), 70 percent more food will be needed to feed everyone, and food prices will rise with demand. Climate change threatens to exacerbate the challenge of food production as droughts, fires and floods damage arable land with increasing frequency and magnitude. Thus, fertile land is becoming more valuable by the day.

Public and private investors, both foreign and domestic, are buying or leasing large tracts of fertile land from developing countries in deals commonly referred to as "land grabs." Countries concerned about their own food security, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, are seeking to obtain offshore farms from which to export food crops (often exporting their food insecurity to the country whose land they are utilizing in the process). Private investors see an opportunity to make a large profit by exporting food crops or biofuels, often enticed by tax incentives, low labor costs and giveaway prices. In most cases, the governments selling this land do not consult the local population that has been subsisting off the land for generations. Farmers get kicked off their farms, sometimes compensated, sometimes not.

Since the financial and food crises of 2008, the World Bank Group has incentivized and facilitated land grabs in several countries in Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia. Through its private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, as well as its Foreign Investment Advisory Service and program to Remove Administrative Barriers to Investment, the World Bank has worked to reform land laws and offer tax holidays that attract investors to farmland, while also providing technical assistance and advisory services to the governments of developing countries that are in need of foreign direct investment.

The World Bank claims that it works to help countries overcome inequality and ensure that new land investments offer benefits shared by local populations. Its Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI), a list of voluntary principles for investors in agriculture, specifically lays out principles that are meant to protect the food security and natural resources of the public. The World Bank not only fails to comply with its own principles regarding agricultural investment; the Bank's policies actually accomplish the opposite of its stated goals, facilitating land deals that have deleterious effects on local populations.

World Bank Principles

In May 2008, the World Bank responded to the financial and food crises by creating the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP), which led to a 54 percent increase in the next fiscal year in World Bank loans, grants and equity investments. In October 2009, the Bank acted as the central organizer in establishing a multilateral trust fund to support a multibillion-dollar food-security initiative with the G-20. Joan Baxter, a research fellow at the Oakland Institute, notes that, in 2009 alone, the Bank estimates that foreign investors acquired approximately 56 million hectares of farmland—"an area about the size of France"—by long-term lease or purchase in developing countries. "The investment promotion agencies are developing and advertising a veritable smorgasbord of incentives not just to attract foreign investment in farmland, but also to ensure maximum profits to investors. … Investors may pay just a couple of dollars per hectare per year for the land, and in Mali, sometimes no land rent at all."

The Bank has continued to defend the RAI principles that it drafted jointly in April 2010 with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and UN Conference on Trade and Development. The RAI principles encourage, but do not mandate, that existing rights to land and associated natural resources are recognized and respected; investments do not jeopardize food security but rather strengthen it; investments are transparent, monitored and ensure accountability by all stakeholders within a proper business, legal and regulatory environment; all those materially affected are consulted and agreements from consultations are recorded and enforced; and environmental impacts are minimized and mitigated.

None of these standards are being met. Because the principles are not legally binding—and because the Bank, in purporting to hold apolitical status, asserts that securing property rights is a matter to be left to governments—the Bretton Woods project argues that the RAI principles merely "legitimize land grabbing from smallholders."

Ethiopia

In June 2009, a policy brief by the Food and Agriculture Department of the United Nations stated, "The agricultural sector in developing countries is in urgent need of capital," and in order to halve the number of the world's hungry by 2015, "at least $30 billion of additional funds are required annually." It is because of this urgent need, and because an estimated 70 percent of the demand for farmland is in Africa, Baxter says, "that low-income and food-deficit African countries, some still struggling to rebuild after long conflicts, such as Sierra Leone and Liberia, find themselves competing with each other to offer foreign investors ever sweeter deals on their arable land, so desperately needed for local food production."

The Oakland Institute (OI), which has done extensive investigative research in seven African countries where land grabs are taking place (Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia), finds that Ethiopia has been the largest recipient of the World Bank's GFRP program. Between early 2008 and January 2011, OI research finds, the Ethiopian government transferred at least 3.6 million ha of land to investors, although the actual number could be higher. "Ethiopia has created a very attractive investment climate in recent years by providing potential investors with various tax breaks, access to affordable land, and a relatively efficient investment process."

Ethiopia is a member of several international agreements that reduce risk for foreign investors, such as the World Bank's Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States, which details international arbitration procedures for disputes with foreign investors, and the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, which insures foreign investors against potential political risks including expropriation and war damages. However, the OI says, "While there is undoubted need for foreign direct investment in Ethiopia, there are widespread concerns that these land investments are not being undertaken in a manner that safeguards the social, environmental and food needs of local populations."

Ethiopians consistently suffer endemic food insecurity and malnutrition. In 2009, some 7.8 million Ethiopians (10 percent of the population) were considered chronically hungry. The Food Security Index for 2010 counted Ethiopia as the sixth most at-risk country out of the 162 countries surveyed. The OI says, "Despite Ethiopia's endemic poverty and food insecurity, there are no mechanisms in place to ensure that these investments contribute to improved food security. In addition, there are numerous incentives to ensure that food production is exported out of the country, providing foreign exchange for the country at the expense of local food supplies."

The Ethiopian government insists that no farmers are displaced by these land deals, that the land being granted is unused—a claim the OI finds blatantly untrue. "In Gambella and Benishangul, respectively, 45,000 and 90,000 households are slated for relocation due to villagization and land investment displacements, resulting in a loss of livelihood for over 650,000 people." Displacement is widespread, and the vast majority of locals do not receive compensation. The government insists that communities are being consulted about land deals, but local populations often don't find out about them until the bulldozers show up.

Forests and wildlife habitats are cleared, and water is used without restriction. "There is nothing in place to ensure that local people benefit from the business opportunities that these investments could present," the OI concludes. The degradation to the land and "the loss of livelihood are difficult to understate. … Decreased food security, the likely increase in natural-resource-related conflict, loss of self-worth, and erosion of cultural identity are all probably outcomes of livelihood loss. Thus, the adverse impact of land investment on the lives of local people will be dramatic, long term and potentially irreversible."

If the needs of African communities were taken into consideration—not only in Ethiopia, but across the gamut of African land grabs—foreign direct investment could be directed to numerous critical areas, such as the need for roads, schools, health centers, farming equipment and technology, water wells, and general infrastructure. Unfortunately, Baxter says, "Conspicuously absent in the talk about the purported benefits of the land deals is serious discussion of protection of local people, human and environmental health, water resources, biodiversity, human rights, food security, and free prior informed consent of the affected communities."

India

In India, a country where 65 percent of the population is dependent on the land, land grabs have been facilitated by the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, which allows the government to acquire land from landowners by paying a government-fixed compensation. A 1991 World Bank structural-adjustment program reversed land reform that had created laws that kept lands under ownership of the tiller. The 1894 Land Acquisition Act was untouched, thus making it easier for the government to acquire land and sell it to foreign investors.

Vandana Shiva reports, "While land has been taken from farmers at Rs 300 ($6) per square meter by the government—using the Land Acquisition Act—it is sold by developers at Rs 600,000 ($13,450) per square meter—a 200,000 percent increase in price, and hence profits. This land grab and the profits contribute to poverty, dispossession and conflict." Not all the land is being grabbed for agribusiness; some is being bought by investors to build racetracks and expressways. To protect the interests of the POSCO Steel project, India's largest foreign investment, the government has set about destroying as many as 40 farms a day. Nonviolent Indian protestors have been fired at and killed by the government.

Elsewhere

Land grabs are happening in developing countries all over the world: China, Pakistan, Indonesia, Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras. The MERCOSUR countries of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil have implemented initiatives that regulate foreign purchases of land. But in Argentina, President Cristina Kirchner passed a law that allows foreigners to rent land, rather than buying it, which some argue is even worse because it permits the environmental degradation of agrochemicals and large-scale farming to take its toll without any long-term accountability in place.

Chinese food corporation Heilogjiang Beidahuang State Faros Business Trade Group Co., Ltd. is investing in irrigation systems in Rio Negro, Argentina, in exchange for land rental that it will use to export genetically modified food staples back to China. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs finds, "Chinese irrigation practices are notably problematic, as almost 40 percent of China's total land is plagued by soil erosion. Worried that these practices will be transferred to the Río Negro valley, environmentalists and concerned citizens have begun to protest." As another example of the lack of free, prior and informed consent in land grabs, "The provincial government leased these lands to the Chinese corporation without ever consulting the true owners of the land—the Mapuche."

As the case of Argentina illustrates, governments clearly play a major role in protecting (or failing to protect) the rights and interests of its citizens in these land deals. However, World Bank policies have been these governments' partner in crime, exhibiting blatant disregard for local populations and contradicting the RAI principles the Bank claims to uphold. As long as the World Bank continues to act as an engine for land deals that exacerbate food insecurities of local populations, remove agrarian families from their properties without compensation or informed consent, and result in unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, the Bank cannot claim with any veracity that helping countries reduce poverty and hunger is at the core of its agenda.

Joshua Pringle is a journalist, novelist and singer living in New York City, and is the senior editor for Worldpress.org. He is currently studying international relations in the master's program at New York University.

http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/3835.cfm

The Ethiopian government insists that no farmers are displaced by these land deals, that the land being granted is unused—a claim the OI finds blatantly untrue.
"In Gambella and Benishangul, respectively, 45,000 and 90,000 households are slated for relocation due to villagization and land investment displacements, resulting in a loss of livelihood for over 650,000 people."
Displacement is widespread, and the vast majority of locals do not receive compensation. The government insists that communities are being consulted about land deals, but local populations often don't find out about them until the bulldozers show up.

So... woyanes want to go to war with Egypt on behalf of their land-grabbing masters ? Hmmm...

Revolution...To be honest with you..personally i dont oppose the [deleted] to invite foreigners to invest in the agriculture sector in Ethiopia, what i oppose is, to which people and for what gain? The Orthodox church and its naughty priest have sodomized the brain of the peasants not to work hard to meet their own means..from the early age of its inception, the priest to safegaurd their own interest, they told the people to work hard is a taboo and it might bring bad luck to the house.. in fact if you count the days on which the poor peasants were allowed to work by the church, they would event exceed 160 a year..now imagine a year has more than 365 days but the orthodox priest told the poor peasant deliberatly, to stay off work and instead celeberate the day of saint of michael, saint Gebrael, saint leterfail, saint Deqi-Arawit, Saint you goit my drift...and on top of that, people stayed off work when some one dies in the village, when some one was baptizing their children. when some one was having a baby..etc etc etc etc .This broke the spirit of those peasants and it left a trace to the next generation. and the pagan and nomadic people of Oromo and other cushitic people dont have any clue how to cultivate the land except moving from one place to another and of course to have dozens of children from dozens of "wives". In fact, to his credit when famine strike Ethiopia in the 80..he tried to resettle the peasant to the more arable land of the country but he failed to acheive the goal because there were no funds, no subsidy from the government, no infrustructure. That is also why the plan failed to meet the goal set.

Now if the [deleted] invited serious investors who can teach their expertise to the locals on the base of win win situation..i might applaud the efffort..but in the [deleted] land..it is all about short.sightedness and visionless plan. If you ask me why indians in particular arabs are invited to the vast land to invest and [deleted] the land on the expesne of the locals..the answers is all about politics rather than agriculture.

Politics.
Indians: personally i have a great respect to indians, peaceful and people of culture who revere education and who try to stay out of criminal activity where ever they go. and above all, despite their deep inferior complex toward the caucasian people, they always tend to stay to their own to let the culture and value pass to the next generation..but lets face it, indians and agriculture is just oxymoron. There is nothing those people can learn to Ethiopians. But knowing the [deleted] intrigue..may be this investment has nothing do with economy rather be politics.....As every body knows, india aspires to become member of the security council and may be the [deleted] are just scratching the back of indians to have a favor returned after they join the exclusive club?

The Arabs.
The Arabs are hedious people and people with no humanity or compassion. This is how the arabs were described by the famous Arab historian Ibn khaldoun

Arabs dominate only of the plains, because they are, by their savage nature, people of pillage and corruption. They pillage everything that they can take without fighting or taking risks, then flee to their refuge in the wilderness, and do not stand and do battle unless in self-defense. So when they encounter any difficulty or obstacle, they leave it alone and look for easier prey.

Now some one needs to tell me, what does a nomadic arab know about agriculture to be offered a land larger than the state of Israel in Ethiopia? what can the arabs teach about agriculture to Ethiopians?