From exposing dodgy land barons in Zimbabwe, to public-private sector collusion forcing locals off their land in Uganda, we’re using the power of video show how land corruption affects lives and what we’re doing to bring about change.
Take a look:
Ghana
This film was made by widowed farmers in Kulbia village in northern Ghana. It documents how land rights violations are destroying their livelihoods.
Malian men control access to land and decide which parts women are allowed to farm - that's a problem for women as erratic weather increases competition for land and harvests
BOGOSSONI, Mali, May 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Anthio Mounkoro has been farming land in Bogossoni for as long as she can remember – but none of it was ever hers.
"The land I've been cultivating my whole life is my father's," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation while meticulously watering a batch of shallots, careful not to waste one drop from the hose.
National laws and regulations in low- and middle-income countries consistently fail to protect the land rights of women living in indigenous and rural communities, making them ill-prepared to reach the targets set by the Sustainable Development Goals or the Paris Agreement on climate change, a new report called “Power and Potential” released by the Rights and Resources Initiative, or RRI, reveals.
Globally, principles for responsible investment in agriculture and food system, requires respecting, protecting, and promoting human rights, including the progressive realization of the right to adequate food, in the context of national food security. This is in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights instruments and protocols.
International principles, protocols that safeguard land rights
Colonialism brought large-scale farming to Africa, promising modernisation and jobs – but often dispossessing people and exploiting workers. Now, after several decades of independence, and with investor interest growing, African governments are once again promoting large plantations and estates. But the new corporate interest in African agriculture has been criticised as a “land grab”.
Residents of a village in Hanoi's outskirts took 38 officials and policemen hostage recently in protest against what they claimed was the illegal seizure of their land by a telecommunications firm owned by the military.
The stand-off riveted the nation, and also highlighted the persistence of land disputes in a region where rapid development is pitting large commercial interests against longstanding communities.
How do you deal with bureaucratic inefficiencies and weak capacity, to say nothing of endemic impoverishment, corruption, criminal gangs and staggering inequities that undermine property rights worldwide? Is there a way for those in the private and nonprofit sectors to engage with government to fill some of the gaps in the provision of property rights, without making the situation worse? A way to get involved without further complicating matters?
Poverty eradication is high on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo administration’s agenda. On his election campaign trail in Bandung, West Java, on July 3, 2014, he elucidated how he would address the acute poverty among 29 million citizens, 18 million of whom live in rural areas. A priority program he envisaged was provision of land to 4.5 million poor families.
Sixty percent of Zambians are small-scale farmers, who make up many of the nation's poorest people but produce 85 percent of its food
LONDON, May 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Zambia's smallholder farmers could be made squatters on their own land as the country opens up to farming multinationals in an effort to boost its economy, said a United Nations expert.
Putting land at the heart of radical economic transformation – a perspective from the ground
