Farmland - World Bank promotes land grab: think tank

World Bank promotes land grab: think tank

Report charges that the International Finance Corporation
aids corporate control of arable land.

28 April, 2010 | Straight Goods
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from the Oakland Institute

OAKLAND, April 26, 2010 — The World Bank is convening a major
two-day conference on Land Policy & Administration in Washington,
DC. The conference's goal is supposedly to "improve land governance"
and "contribute to the well-being of the poorest".

However, the Oakland Institute's new report, (Mis)Investment in
Agriculture: The Role of the International Finance Corporation in the
Global Land Grab, charges that the Bank's private sector branch, the
International Finance Corporation (IFC), plays an important role in
fueling land grabs, especially in Africa.

Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the

world, but the

government has already offered at least

7.5 million acres of its most

fertile land to rich countries

to grow food for export.

"Land grabs — the purchase or lease of vast tracts of land from poor,
developing countries by wealthier, food-insecure nations and private
investors — have led to the [corporate] acquisition of nearly 50 million
hectares of farmland," said Shepard Daniel, Oakland Institute's Fellow
and author of the report. "While rising food prices, demand for biofuels,
and investors seeking quick returns have been emphasized as the
principal drivers of this trend, the role of the World Bank has gone
virtually unnoticed."

Daniel charges that developing country governments have received
dangerous misadvice from IFC's Technical Assistance and Advisory
Services (TAAS) and Foreign Investment Advisory Services (FIAS)
about the way to spur foreign direct investment in agriculture. This
misadvice has fueled the dangerous trend of vast land deals in some of
the world's most vulnerable countries.

"Following the 2008 food and financial crises, World Bank was to play
a central role in what was intended to be a massive overhaul in
international food policy and a vast improvement to food security in the
developing world," said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the
Oakland Institute. "Evidence, however, reveals that World Bank Group
policies and efforts are doing just the opposite.

"The IFC has actually

increased the ability of

foreign investors to

acquire land in

developing country

markets. It is

promoting so-called

'products' — such as

the 'Access to Land'

and the 'Land Market

for Investment' — whose purpose is to open land access to investors....
In doing so, it has overlooked the urgent problem of hunger that
persists in client countries, and lost sight of its principle mission, which
is to alleviate poverty," she continued.

For instance, in Ethiopia, IFC's recommended changes to policy and
legislature have completely transformed the landscape of Ethiopian
investment climate. Accordingly, huge investments in land market have
followed. "Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with
more than 13 million people in need of food aid," said Daniel, "but
paradoxically the government has already offered at least 7.5 million
acres of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world's
most wealthy individuals to export food back to their own countries."

(Mis)Investment in Agriculture concludes that the promotion of investor
access into developing country land markets threatens local food
security, displaces local populations, and therefore operates in direct
violation of IFC's Performance Standards as well as several UN Human
Rights Conventions.

The Report contends that it is crucial that IFC be investigated and held
accountable for the land grabs promoted by its technical assistance and
advisory services. In addition, the World Bank's current practices that
promote land grabs must be stopped, in order to protect the food
security and livelihoods of the world's most vulnerable populations.

(Mis)Investment in Agriculture: The Role of the International Finance
Corporation in the Global Land Grab, is a is a publication of the
Oakland Institute, an independent policy think tank whose mission is to
increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social,
economic, and environmental issues.

The Oakland Institute is a policy think tank whose mission is to
increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social,
economic and environmental issues in both national and international
forums.

References
Download a copy of the report

Courtesy