"This report was prepared for 'Legal tools for citizen empowerment, ' a programme steered by the International Institute for Environment and Development"--Page iii.

Over the last few years, agribusinesses, investment funds and government agencies have demonstrated a growing interest in acquiring large portions of land, mostly in developing countries and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In the host countries, investors and government see these acquisitions as opportunities to attract foreign investment that will enhance food and energy security and stimulate socio-economic development. Analysing a number of these deals in Africa suggests that these objectives are usually not attained and that their sustainability appears to be uncertain.

The past several decades have witnessed a rise in foreign and domestic investments in Africa’s arable land. While such land projects are currently the focus of widespread media and scholarly interest, the role of the state in driving, negotiating and facilitating these acquisitions deserves closer attention. This book analyzes how state land policies, stakeholder interactions and privatization schemes interact to facilitate large-scale land acquisitions. It includes a study of the various forms of state intervention, the influence of foreign agencies, governments and private entities, and a look at how states interact with local populations. The inclusion of case studies in settings throughout the African continent should attract the interest of both an academic and non-academic readership.

Interrogates the narratives of land grabbing and agricultural investment through detailed local studies that illuminate how these are experienced on the ground and the implications for Africa's land and agricultural economy.

Over the past few years, large-scale land acquisitions in Africa have stoked controversy, making headlines in media reports across the world. Land that only a short time ago seemed of little outside interest is now being sought by international investors to the tune of hundreds of thousands of hectares. Private-sector expectations of higher world food and commodity prices and government concerns about longer-term national food and energy security have both made land a more attractive asset. Dubbed 'land grabs' in the media, large-scale land acquisitions have become one of the most talked about and contentious topics amongst those studying, working in or writing about Africa. Some commentators have welcomed this trend as a bearer of new livelihood opportunities. Others have countered by pointing to negative social impacts, including loss of local land rights, threats to local food security and the risk that large-scale investments may marginalize family farming. Lorenzo Cotula, a leading expert in the field, casts a critical eye over the most reliable evidence on this hotly contested topic, examining the implications of land deals in Africa both for its people and for world agriculture and food security.

This book focuses on profiling, from both literature-based and primary research points of orientation, instances of land grabs and/or acquisitions with a focus on the implications of land grabs for trade, investment and development policy in Africa under the global green economy transition agenda. In many instances, case studies and examples paint a picture that could be of use to policy-makers. Overall, the book advocates a 'satisfy-satisfy' orientation when land deals are made, as well as total transparency from key actors, building grassroots negotiation capacity and awareness. To illustrate some of the emerging issues in terms of land-grabs, acquisition and their implications for trade, investment and development policies, the sixth Trade Policy Training Centre in Africa (trapca) conference took place in Arusha, Tanzania on 24 and 25 November 2011. The conference had two objectives: (1) to come up with concrete policy interventions and recommendations that would harness foreign investment in land on the continent; and (2) to publish this edited book of selected papers presented at the conference that met the rigorous specifications laid down by the editors and publishers. One of the major revelations to emerge from the Conference was that 'there is no vacant land in Africa'. In addition, participants took the view that land deals in Africa needed to be done on a 'satisfy-satisfy-satisfy' rather than a 'win-win-win' basis. This book is jointly published by trapca and the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA).