THIS LAND IS NOT FOR SALE!

In the end it always comes down to the land, Who owns it? Who farms it? And who lives on it? Or who makes a living from it? Since Humans have been living in relatively settled communities land has been bought, sold and stolen fuelling grievances both real and imaginary. What is a relatively new in recent years is that land deals have become a new form of international trade. In recent years, sub Saharan Africa has been the public focus for this trade (the reality is that is been going on around the world for many years). A combination of commercial companies and the various commercial arms of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been chasing profits (and land) in Africa pursing profits and (in the case of the PRC) foodstuffs for the world (and the Chinese) market.

Between 2008 and 2009 the World Bank noted media reports of land deals that added up to something like 60 million hectares. The traditional UK media unit of measurement, Wales, won't help to illustrate the scale of the issue, that all adds up to something like the land equivalent to the Ukraine – some two-thirds of the land acquired happens to be in Africa. The evidence points to the fact that land deals are taking place on an unprecedented scale and at an increasing rate. Some of the specific land deals are pretty big, a recent deal in Liberia involved some 220,000 hectares.

The western media has tended to focus on the land deals signed by Middle Eastern and Asian government-backed operators but in reality Western commercial companies and Hedge Funds have also been heavily involved in the process – they don’t like the glare of publicity. One of the reasons why commercial companies are seeking to acquire land is because there is potentially big money to be made with cash crops as world food and commodity prices are expected to increase because of increasing demand for foodstuffs and also bio-fuels from China and India. Some of this is being driven by governments who are chasing land acquisitions abroad as a way to secure affordable food for their people at home.

In 1961 at or on the edge of independence Africa largely fed itself and even managed to export surplus crops. This is no longer the case, partially due to a neglect of the agricultural sector in many African countries, political instability, corruption and a chronic lack of investment to improve productivity and the means of getting surplus crops to both local and international markets. It goes without saying that not all types of investment is good and evidence is beginning to pile up that suggests that large scale land deals have a detrimental impact on indigenous local farmers.

Research by the International Land Coalition suggests that a growing number of these large scale land deals are failing due to a combination of poor soil types, financial problems, local resistance and unrealistic business plans. Some of these land acquisitions have resulted in some pretty raw deals for local people and as a consequence have fuelled dissent and resistance (in Ethiopia and Madagascar to name but two).

Now this does not mean that African states and peoples should steer clear of all land deals. What is needed is for land deals to be implemented properly, transparently, with safeguards for local people and local involvement. Some of the world's poorest people are losing the land, water and natural resources that have supported their livelihoods and their communities for generations. In Uganda, Oxfam has noted that some 20,000 people who claim to have been evicted from their land have taken their case to court seeking redress.

Part of the problem is because of the massive power imbalance between multinational companies, African governments and local farmers and landholders. Many of these land deals are negotiated behind closed doors without transparency, without local consultation something which fuels local dissent and anger. Across much of Sub Saharan Africa, as noted by the International Institute for Environment and Development, there is lack of secure land tenure which affects local farmers, herders and gatherers. This is partially down to a lack of written documentation and also because a great deal of land is owned by the state, which can obviously allocate it to outside investors even against fierce local opposition.

There are some pretty successful business models out there that show what can be done by local people, one co-operative of 60,000 cocoa farmers (in Ghana) has been in business for almost twenty years and owns 45% of a UK company that manufactures and distributes chocolate. There are ways to improve productivity and market access that can support local farmers or at least give them a realistic chance of competing.

Many international companies are able to successfully source agricultural produce from local family farmers, and have invested in other activities along the production line to help secure their supplies and improve local livelihoods. Some farmers associations (in Mali and Zambia) own shares in the company they collaborate with, which gives them monetary benefits and a greater say. Co-operatives have reduced their costs by working with large numbers of farmers.

Some land deals could bring many benefits including increased food production; access to improved agricultural skills, secure land tenure for indigenous farmers and more sustainable development in rural communities. This is something that could help to slow one of sub Saharan Africa's greatest problems rural to urban migration. Civic groups in sub Saharan Africa are demanding far greater transparency and openness from their governments and from investors. If this is done right then local indigenous communities can be helped to become equal partners rather than ending up as victims.

FEED THE WORLD...

With the planet's population due to top seven billion very soon worrying about where the next meal is going to come from is going to be a real issue for a significant proportion of us. As our planet's population continues to increase (it's estimated to reach around 9.2 billion people by 2050) there will be a corresponding rise of around 70% in demand for food (UN).Around half of the planet's undernourished citizens are dependent on small farms for their food. Some 80% of food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa is produced by small farms. Who produces it? who owns the land? and to whom do they sell it to? and at what price? may also become pretty important questions.

LAND AND POWER

As multi nationals and the People's Republic of China (PRC) continue to chase to attempt to secure control of the worlds resources one thing they are both seeking to secure control of (for different reasons) is food and the land it grows upon. With purchasable governments in certain quarters of the world it's the small farmer who's felling the pinch, losing both his land, the ability to feed his family not to mention the ability to feed other people. Planet-wide it has been estimated that there are some 500 million small farms (less than two hectares in size) which feed around one third of the planets population.

Half of the planet's undernourished citizens are dependent on small farms for their food. Some 80% of food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa is produced by small farms. As our planet's population continues to increase (it's estimated to reach around 9.2 billion people by 2050) there will be a corresponding rise of around 70% in demand for food (UN). So with the PRC chasing food as well as minerals to feed it's population and it's economy and the multi nationals chasing a fast buck no doubt at the expense of local indigenous inhabitants who won't be able or willing to pay top dollar or euro for foodstuffs that are destined for distant foreign markets.

Local people will be driven into dire poverty, they lose their land in the process along with the ability to feed themselves and other peoples. Oxfam's recent  report 'Land and Power' makes interesting and alarming reading. One of the great ironies is that many of the developers are working with local governments who are being helped out by the world Bank and the International Monetary Fund - this surely is the kind of alleged 'free market' development much of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa can well do without.

AID AND ABET?

The exposure of whats been done with aid in Ethiopia by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and BBC 2's Newsnight should make the UK Westminster Government and other Western Governments think about the consequences of misdirected aid and the form by which aid is offered to repressive governments in Africa and elsewhere. There is a need for a full, frank and periodic accounting of exactly how foreign aid is spent and who actually gets access to it on the ground.

Meles Zenawi and friend

Sadly this is old news, as observers have for many years been concerned that Western aid to Africa is being used to prop up some pretty grim autocratic regimes. The direct link between aid and political repression was demonstrated last year in “Development without Freedom,” an extensively documented new report on Ethiopia by Human Rights Watch. Based on interviews with 200 people in 53 villages and cities throughout the country, the report concludes that the Ethiopian government, headed by prime minister Meles Zenawi, regularly uses aid as a political weapon to discriminate against non-party members and punish dissenters, sending the population the draconian message that “survival depends on political loyalty to the state and the ruling party.”

Ethiopia is Africa’s largest recipient of foreign aid (at $3.3 billion in 2008 and rising), and is frequently described as a country where western assistance is providing a safety net for the poor and laying the groundwork for country-wide economic growth. The UK is the second largest aid doner in Ethiopia after the USA. Donors working in Ethiopia, cite progress on six out of the eight Millennium Development Goals, claiming that aid has had a significant impact on improving the lives of the poorest families.

Ethiopia which is a predominantly Christian country that borders two unstable Islamic states (Somalia, and Sudan), not to mention Africa's newest independent state (South Sudan) is seen as strategically important by the West. Former communist Ethiopia is seen as a crucial if not vital ally in the ongoing and floundering so called war on terror.

Human Rights Watch contends that the Ethiopian government abuses aid funds for political purposes—in programs intended to help Ethiopia’s most poor and vulnerable. For example, more than fifty farmers in three different regions said that village leaders withheld government provided seeds and fertilizer, and micro-loans because they didn’t belong to the ruling party. Some villagers have been asked to renounce their views and join the party to ensure that they receive assistance and aid.

Human Rights Watch, investigating one program that purportedly gives food and cash in exchange for work on public projects, the report documented the fact that farmers who have never been paid for their work and entire families who have been barred from participating because they were thought to belong to the opposition. Still more disturbing local officials have denied emergency food aid to women, children, and the elderly as punishment for refusing to join the party.

None of this should surprise anyone, not really, Meles Zenawi has for many years charmed and won the trust of Western leaders even as his government becomes increasingly repressive. Numerous journalists, editors, judges, academics, and human rights defenders have all been forced to flee the country or languish behind bars, at risk of torture. New laws that were passed in 2005 have made opposition political activity more difficult than ever.

The Ethiopian Government has used almost every tool in the book to from handing out fertilizer, credit loans to its supporters and denying them to its opponents which helps to crush the opposition. Human Rights Watch says that the umbrella group that representing the 26 donors to Ethiopia intend to continue more or less with business as usual. The overall response has been to reject the blatantly reject the conclusions of the Human Rights Watch report, stating that their own research, has not found any evidence of systematic or widespread distortion.

There is a growing awareness in the aid community of how foreign development support has sustained anti-democratic regimes, yet little has changed and the dictators continue to receive a third of all international aid expenditures, and much of the remaining portion goes to countries that are at best only partly free. A study of aid recipients over the past three decades shows that this failure on the part of western aid donors to separate themselves from autocratic rulers is not just confined to Ethiopia—or even just to Africa.

One excuse, and it may be a genuine one, is a real concern for the poor, hungry and sick who will suffer or die if the government stopped providing vital social services as a result of aid cuts. Lets be brutally honest another less than generous reason is that aid agencies literally exist to give aid; careers and empires have been constructed within what is now the aid industry and organisational incentives push aid bureaucrats to keep the money flowing, to keep their field offices open, and secure their own jobs.

In Ethiopia's case, a violent government crackdown left 200 dead in 2005 and seriously embarrassed the donor community into an unusually frank reconsideration of their strategy. Until the 2005 crackdown, many donors had been giving aid through the mechanism known as “direct budget support,” by which money goes direct into the Ethiopian federal government budget (rather than directly to specific projects).

Even the World Bank (back in 2006) possibly disturbed by the Ethiopian government’s repressive behaviour decided to channel aid through local government to prevent funds being used for domestic political projects. The World Bank which has been no great friend of democracy let alone sustainable development in the recent past, stated that it would reduce aid to Ethiopia if governance did not improve.

Even before the Human Rights Watch report came out, impartial observers had noted how hollow the World Bank’s threats were as local governments in Ethiopia are also under the direct control of the ruling party. Donors have however been reversing this feeble step, as they have argued for a quick return to direct budget support, citing questionable progress in institution-building and small improvements in governance.

Blatant indifference to democratic values is both tragic and lazy as there are many ways the aid community might help Ethiopians rather than help their rulers. Aid donors could insist that investigations into aid abuse be credible, independent and free from government interference, and they could cut support to programs that are being used as weapons of repression against the opposition. Donars could speak out against repressive legislation that aims to weaken or destroy Ethiopian civil society. Donars could also find ways to bypass the government altogether, channeling funds through NGOs instead, or giving direct transfers or scholarships to individuals.

As a final last step, if the Ethiopian government moves to prevent attempts by donors to reach beneficiaries, then aid to Ethiopia could be suspended entirely. A complete aid cutoff under these circumstances cannot further hurt those who are not getting any aid in the first place. Aid donors need to recognise that the current status quo is unacceptable.

Repeated failures by the West to link development aid with the democracy, human rights and the rule of law during the Cold War and afterwards have led to this situation. We have reached the crazy situation where Foreign aid to Ethiopia ends up not improving (or even saving) the lives of those most in need. Much needed Foreign aid has actually ended up by financing the people's oppressors, and has made a bad situation even worse. Doing nothing is not an option, but, clearly we need to think again and ensure that foreign aid gets to where it can do the most good rather than prop up unsavoury regimes.