News on Land

The Land Portal Foundation has launched a new Land & Investments Portfolio that unpacks the key concepts, terms, international frameworks and policies, and many other aspects critical to understanding how land investments affect society.

Interview with Eliceo Quintero (COONAPIP/ Geo Indigena)

The Land Portal Foundation reported another successful year in 2022, making significant progress toward their organizational strategy and monitoring and evaluation framework. According to their annual survey, 87% of users reported a positive impact on their work, while the website continued to receive high traffic, averaging 74,000 visits per month.

Ian Scoones reviews land reform related resettlement schemes which formed part of the post-Independence land reform efforts from 1980 to 2000. These initiatives had phases,reflecting the wider political economy, especially via the legal framework for land appropriation and redistribution by the state.

On Facebook, Instagram, moderation is effective, content monitored. The user can still find diamonds for sale. The origin of these stones remains difficult to prove. Normally, the Kimberley Process allows for solid certifications, avoiding the circulation of blood diamonds. But our investigation reveals that behind a post is at the other end of the chain Russian mercenaries.

The 7th annual West Africa Peasants’ Seed Fair, hosted by the West African Committee for Farmers’ Seeds (Comité Ouest Africain de Semences Paysannes ­– COASP), was held in Zoungbonou, Benin, from 9-11 March 2023, bringing together 75 exhibitors from 25 countries, predominantly from the West African community but also including farmers from East Africa, government officials and academics.

Robin Palmer sadly died on February 19th. Historian, lecturer, land campaigner, NGO worker and consultant, he was the original scholar activist. The large numbers of tributes that have been shared on many platforms (see here and here) are witness to his influence on many over several decades.

The Ethiopian government is striving to enhance responsible agricultural investment that can meet nationally, regionally, and internationally accepted principles, according to Ministry of Agriculture.

World leaders are currently coming together in New York from 22 – 24 March for the first water UN Water Conference in more than 40 years: their aim, to avert a global water crisis. But for farmers in Eastern Africa facing catastrophic food insecurity due to the sixth failed rainy season, or pastoralists who have lost over eleven million animals since drought started in 2020, the crisis is already here.

The Ethiopian Federal Democratic Republic of Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH implemented Responsible Governance of Investment in Land (RGIL) project has organized the third Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue (MSD) on Responsible Governance of Investment in Land (RGIL) at the national level from 21 to 22 March 2023 here in Addis Ababa. The National MSD aims at enhancing general awareness of responsible agricultural investment in Ethiopia, discussed the key challenges in the large-scale agricultural investment facing Ethiopia and proposes potential policy and legal solutions to the identified bottlenecks in the sector.

Al Jazeera infiltrates large gold-smuggling rings and reveals a giant money laundering scheme in which  billions of dollars’ worth of gold is smuggled every month from Zimbabwe to Dubai, allowing criminals to whitewash dirty money through a web of shell companies, fake invoices and paid-off officials.