A report from the Land Matrix has shown that 42 percent of all globally concluded transactions concern ten million hectares of agricultural land on the African continent indicating that about 90 percent of land and water rights in africa are affecting local populations.
Another report by the Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies – PLAAS indicates that in 90 percent of all cases, small farmers were insufficiently compensated or not compensated at all, a practice believed to have made many people lose the foundation for their own existence, land and water sources as well as making the local population become vulnerable to food and income insecurity, especially women.
PLAAS which is conducting a study on agricultural investments in Africa and their consequences for the local population in Southern Africa’s countries of Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia disclosed that about 160,000 fertile hectares of agricultural land have been lost in the center of global land investments.
According to PLAAS, it hopes to continue to secure land and water rights for vulnerable communities with the initial the funding of its project tagged “Land and Water Rights in Southern Africa: Entrenching Global and Regional Policy” to the tune of 650,000 euros which is intended to secure the rights of 181 million small landowners to their lands in the coming years.
While claiming that the institute’s focal agenda and advocacy are to ensure that Africa’s local population’s land and water rights are protected, it however calls for new regulations, and awareness in communities about existing directives on land use rights, including the guidelines of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
The Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies said whilst will continue to seek dialogue with civil society organizations and local land and water resource owners, it added that it would also be engaging with decision-makers such as the ministries of agriculture and water resources as well as becoming part of the advisory body to the Land Policy Initiative at the African Union (AU).
Amongst successes recorded so far by PLAAS include Zambia’s Free Prior Informed Consent –FPIC principle has been enshrined in the country’s 2019 Draft Land Policy that articulates that the principle protects indigenous people’s right to self-determination and allows them to “give or withhold consent to a project that may affect them or their territories”.
The institute also said its work is benefitting land professionals working in civil society, industry, academia, as well as government and that it also collaborating with the Network of Excellence on Land Governance in Africa –NELGA, and providing training material for a course on “The Political Economy of Land Governance in Africa”.
