Construction of various project components
to extract, process, and export the Shwe
gas - as well as oil trans-shipments from
Africa and the Middle East - is now well
underway. Local peoples are losing their land
and fishing grounds without finding new job
opportunities. Workers that have found lowpaying
temporary jobs are exploited and fired for
demanding basic rights. Women face unequal
wages, discrimination in the compensation
process, and vulnerabilities in the growing sex
industry around the project.

Improved access to land and data is pivotal for the promotion of land governance reform as well as the fulfillment of human rights and sustainable development. With access to reliable data and information, informed decisions regarding land and property rights can take place.

Contains framework for analysing the gender impacts of foreign investment in agriculture; gender analysis of the certification criteria of voluntary sustainability standards and responsible investment frameworks; do voluntary sustainability standards improve gender equality?; lessons for responsible investment frameworks and recommendations.

Includes land acquisition: trends and drivers; experiences on the ground – South Sudan, Uganda, Indonesia, Honduras, Guatemala; what is failing at the national level?; what is failing at the international level?; growing justice – recommendations. Asserts that 227 million hectares have been sold or leased in developing countries since 2001, mostly over the past two years.

Includes gender in the existing literature, entrenched gender discrimination, case studies from Ethiopia, Zambia and Rwanda, ways forward, conclusion. Based on a larger study for the International Land Coalition.

Contributes to the research gap on host country governance dynamics by synthesizing results and lessons from 38 case studies conducted in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. It shows how and why large-scale farmland investments are often synonymous with displacement, dispossession, and environmental degradation and, thereby, highlights 7 outcome determinants that merit more explicit treatment in academic and policy discourse.

Includes rising land acquisition in developing countries; threats and opportunities from large-scale land acquisitions; making a virtue of necessity: toward win-win policies; 5 tables of media reports on overseas land investments to secure food supplies, 2006-09.

Discusses two agricultural investments in Zambia. Both projects started as state-led, development-oriented initiatives in the 1970s and early 1980s, and were later privatised. This long implementation history provides an opportunity to assess the longer-term socio-economic outcomes of agricultural investments, and to distil insights on practical ways to include lower-income groups in investment processes. Includes national context, design and implementation of the investment projects, and socio-economic outcomes.

With all the focus on land grabbing and food security, water issues tend to be an afterthought. Foreign investments tend to be concentrated around the main African river basins. Water resources are lifelines for locals, so understanding the legal framework governing investments is critical. Covers how abundant are Africa’s water resources?; what does the evidence show?; the legal framework governing water rights and farmland investments; domestic law and contracts; international investment, freshwater, environmental and human rights law; recommendations.

Report brings together the multiple legal strands that weave together and form the context of farmland investments and water rights. Farmland investments are about much more than simple commercial land transactions; they have great impacts on the amount of water available for local communities and other states. Demonstrates that water is a precious resource facing growing pressures from climate change, population growth and urbanization. The water abstracted to maintain production of large-scale commercial farming further exacerbates these strains and must be given due consideration.

A practical guide to help governments negotiate contracts to reduce the harmful effects of large-scale land investments. Proposes model contract clauses that can fill gaps in domestic law and contribute to promoting more sustainable foreign agricultural investment. Based on more than 3 year investigation of 80 agricultural investment contracts. A proactive response to the land grab phenomenon that has plagued many countries in Africa and South East Asia in recent decades.

The recent wave of land deals for agribusiness investments has highlighted the widespread demand for greater accountability in the governance of land and investment. Legal frameworks influence opportunities for accountability, and recourse to law has featured prominently in grassroots responses to the land deals. Drawing on comparative socio-legal research in Cameroon, Ghana and Senegal, this report explores how the law enables, or constrains, accountability in investment processes.