Unscrupulous politicians cashing in on Africa's land deals
Over-dramatised narratives of 'land grabbing' by foreign governments and companies conceals the rent-seeking marriage of domestic economic, political and traditional elites.
Andile Sokomani, Senior Researcher, Corruption and Governance Programme, ISS Cape Town Office
The nascent but growing academic research and significant media attention around the recent spate of farmland acquisitions in Africa and other developing countries present some food for thought, if not thought for food. The news stories and research reports are peppered with haunting narratives of marauding multinational companies and acquiescent national governments intent on gobbling up swathes of farmland with scant regard for the food and livelihood security of local communities. ‘Land grabbing’ is the favoured term for describing this allegedly new neo-colonial drive by foreign companies and governments to acquire prime African agricultural land at ridiculously low prices. The culprits this time around are not just the usual suspects. Governments and agricultural corporations from the Middle East and South East Asia have joined North American and European multinationals in the ‘new scramble’ for African farmland.
While effective in capturing the popular imagination, these narratives tend to over-simplify and over-dramatise a fairly complex, multilayered, nuanced process. As some scholars have argued, they conceal the considerable degrees of attrition involved between proposed and concluded deals, as well as concluded deals and actual investments. The fact that most lands being allocated are on the basis of lease rather than absolute grant or sale is also in danger of distortion. The overemphasis on African states as victims of villainous foreign firms and governments also risks obscuring more significant but not necessarily obvious dynamics behind land acquisitions, including the role of domestic elites who have little qualms about using public office to advance private personal interests. As emotive as it may be, the phenomenon of land deals in Africa warrants more sober analysis.
Attracting foreign direct investment has always been a priority for many land rich and income poor African governments. Cheap land rental rates and labour costs are some of the incentives that have finally made Africa an attractive investment destination. Coming in the wake of a long foreign direct investment dry spell, the new wave of domestic and foreign investment in African agricultural land is a welcome development. There is no better opportunity to reverse long-standing underinvestment in African agriculture. What is of increasing concern, a point naysayers also make, is that the investment terms and modes have opened up deep rifts between citizens and states. Many African governments are generally not known for being committed to the interests and well being of their own citizenry. Mounting evidence suggests that land leases or concessions have been granted on communal land already occupied and used by local communities.
Strict confidentiality is the hallmark of investment deals in general, and farmland acquisitions in Africa are no different. They have been characterised by low levels of transparency, weak monitoring provisions, and the absence of mechanisms to ensure accountability. The practice of vesting power over land in the state is still prevalent in many African countries - driven by the assumption that host governments own the lands they are selling or leasing. It is not clear how this assumption still persists given that the authority of states to allocate lands to which citizens might have a prior competing claim is highly contested. All this has been conducive to rendering African farmland acquisitions yet another lucrative opportunity for corrupt politicians and their cronies to amass wealth.
The resultant inequalities - such as when governments and other authorities unilaterally sanction private investors to divert communal natural resources for own private commercial use - are likely to fuel conflict, instability and unrest. The risk is especially high in those African economies where agriculture still accounts for the lion’s share of exports and gross domestic product. The overthrow of the Ravalomanana regime in early 2009 and the associated failed Daewoo Logistics deal for 1.3 million hectares in Madagascar ‘ a plan to lease over half of the country’s arable land to secure future maize and fuel stocks for South Korea - is a lesson other African governments should ignore at their peril.
Land deals pertaining to extractive industries such as mining and forestry pose similar dangers. Like farmland acquisitions, these deals, as noted in the literature, have heightened and intensified tussles between mining companies, national governments granting prospecting rights or mining permits, local and traditional authorities that act as gatekeepers and deal-makers, and communities on whose land such developments are envisaged. The trend spans a wide spectrum of diverse regions - from the flourishing platinum mines in the northern regions of South Africa’s Limpopo province, to the thriving uranium mining houses in Malawi, oil, natural gas, silver, gold, copper, and diamond mining in Angola, and copper expansion in Zambia. In some instances local councillors have accepted payments from mining companies to facilitate forced removals of villagers from their land.
Africa’s forestry sector is also replete with deals that present similar instances where separation of personal economic interests from political and governance powers is still yet to be achieved. Commentators have noted how authority in government is used to allocate annual logging licences and manipulate regulations, while extracting rents and outright bribes. Others have brought to attention the rent-seeking marriage of political, traditional and economic elite still solidly embedded in many African societies, and how this provides little incentive for the kind of equitable participation, which these land deals demand.
The importance of measures to put brakes on these unsavoury trends cannot be emphasised enough. Providing means for enabling local communities to stake their rightful claim on not just lands leased for food and bio fuel production but also on lands taken for mining, timber extraction, wildlife and tourism, should be a starting point. Unless this is taken care of, African countries are unlikely to make the most of large-scale land investments. Further remedies lie in introducing higher levels of transparency, strong monitoring provisions by civil society, mechanisms to ensure accountability, and most importantly, an accelerated domestic and international acknowledgement that customary and other unregistered land tenancy also amount to real property interest. Failure to do so risks rendering land a means of concentrating political and economic power - to be dispensed through patronage, nepotism and corruption.
