The United Nations’ number one millennium development goal is eradicating extreme poverty from the face of the earth.
Holding this slogan high, countries across the globe are working to get
rid of poverty. Supporters of bilateral aid both international and
national nongovernmental organizations up and down are working to
achieve this goal.
There is, however, one colossal obstacle standing in
the way of them achieving their goal and that, of course, is land and
water grabbing. When the land and water grabbing phenomenon turned up
all around the world it cast its shadow over MDG endeavors.
According
to the World Bank 70% of world citizens who earn less than 2 dollars a
day are located in the Sub-Saharan region. This region is an area where
extreme poverty is highly concentrated and consequently where world
combined force works to pull residents out from under the reign of
multidimensional poverty. The saddening fact however is that this
region is now the 70% victim of land and water grabbing practices.
Never
forget that in the Sub-Saharan region and others among the most
under-developed regions in the world more than 80 percent of the
population constitutes farmers. For these groups of people in
particular, to break free from the grasp of poverty, of course
agriculture plays a vital role. The land and water of these poor nations
are the potentials in hand of its poor majority populations to achieve
the eradication of poverty in alignment with MDG.
We have learnt
from the development history of today’s most developed nation’s their
initial and turning points in the process of development is agriculture.
More than anything else for poor nations to eradicate poverty and to
develop their countries they have no other choice than to utilize their
agricultural potentials. Furthermore, under-developed countries have to
choose agriculture first because agriculture is the preferred model for
their capacity. Since education and technology is deficient in less
developed areas the easiest way to move to wealth is by exploiting
agriculture resources.
Land grabbing was born in the era of MDG
and within a decade it spread very fast. It seems to have spread faster
than the world race toward MDG accomplishment. The head of economic
justice for Oxfam, Ms. Kelly Dent, says the following of the spread of
land grabbing practices.
“Over the last 10 years, poor countries have lost a soccer oval worth of land to foreign investors every second”
In addition, Oxfam’s “Working Together to End Poverty and Injustice”,
Reports the following about the scale of the scramble to land grab.
“In
developing countries as many as 560 million acres of land, an area
greater than the size of California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico
and Wyoming combined, have been sold, leased or licensed in large-scale
land deals since 2001.”
Imagine how fast and how
aggressively the trend to land and water grab has spread. Land grabbing
movement has become an over-consumptive movement. It was born out of the
recent global recession when seeing the future as gloomy companies ran
to grab land and water from the world’s poorest countries. It seems the
calculations were not farsighted, however. How could they sustain their
profit for long? Since there is no mutual respect and benefit it cannot
self-sustain but rather it brings about other unexpected problems.
Instability, hatred and war might result from such human rights violated
business practices.
How does land and water grabbing differ from other kinds of investments?
Land
grab is different from other investments in its nature. One of its
unusual characteristics lies within its risk taking measures. Under
normal circumstances when people invest their money they evaluate risks
by assessing the rule of law, political stability and peace among other
things. Investors are generally sensitive to investing their money when
risks are substantial. Land grabbing on the contrary especially in
Ethiopia, takes huge risks. These potential risks constitute the
following dilemmas.
The quest for land tenor is an unresolved question
In
Ethiopia in the 1970s one of the hottest political issues was the land
tenor question. University students paid a huge personal price for
rehashing this hot political issue. When the DERG regime came to power
after taking possession of land from large scale land owners, instead of
releasing the land to its tenors with full rights the government lotted
it out for farming and could not resolve the land ownership quest. Then
after the DERG regime fell Ethiopians were hoping that the EPRDF, the
current ruling party, would resolve this question. However, this land is
still owned by the government. This issue of land privatization is
still an important question in the minds of Ethiopian elites and
students.
One of the indicators of this reality is that, except for
ruling EPRDF party supporters all opposition parties believe that land
should be possessed by citizens. Interestingly, this reality indicates
that any governmental change is risky for land grabber security.
Moreover, since there is no reliable doubt that sooner or later these
ownerships will be privatized and repatriated by citizens, the situation
actually put land grabbers in opposition to the same majority of
Ethiopians whose lands they employ. The potential problem for land
grabbers in Ethiopia is that when the time comes for change there will
be a huge reorganization of Ethiopian land policy. Since land has
remained in the control of government the possession transfer can and is
expected to be a somewhat radicalized one.
Ethiopia has
unutilized land but this does not mean that Ethiopia has surplus land.
There is huge demographic pressure in some parts of the country while
there is unutilized land in other disparate areas. In the high land
areas for example farmers on average hold a little less than one hectare
with 6 average family sizes. Due to bad policy citizens cannot fully
exploit their own lands while man power is unrealized on sparse plots.
So again, during that period of projected change those densely populate
areas will have citizenship rights to claim unutilized areas. Remember
that Saudi Arabian and Indian land and water grabbers in Ethiopia took
this risk regardless.
Another risk not only impacts Ethiopia but
also other countries where citizens have lost their access to land and
as a result have experienced instability. People are resisting and
protesting while land grabbers plague the land by employing government
soldiers to guard and protect their interests.
Land and water
grabbing is equivalent to a violation of the sovereignty of one’s
country. Citizens have emotional attachments to their surrounding land
and water environments. When they see their vast lands sold for 99 years
at a time they feel frustrated and irritated because land is one of the
manifestations of sovereignty.
In every country when the land is
sold for a period of time that extends past the life of generations then
individuals can begin to feel unsuccessful. People start to blame the
government who gave away their land and they start to seek
administrative change. In this case the sale of land becomes a stimulant
for political change. This is a huge risk for grabbers. The recent
years witness a good example of these risks.
In Madagascar an
irresponsible government was dealt to sell half of the countries arable
land to one Korean company. The Madagascar people protested and
eventually this resulted in the downfall of the president Marc
Ravalomanana.
Another risk of land grab is that it violates
international human rights protections. While ultimately large scale
investment cannot go far without the support of the international
community.
Land and water grab is characterized by another dealing
that differ it from other investments. The transactions of land
grabbing are highly confidential. Why is land grab deals are not
conducted in the public arena? In less developed countries the act of
attracting investment is big news where gain is often even exaggerated;
investment is usually publicized and often even politicized. When it
comes to instances of land grab, however, deals are kept secret and are
carried out by high level government officials and investors working
privately.
In fact is land grabbing not kept confidential for the
reason that it violates constitutional rights of nations and
international human rights laws in the first place? Land grabbing is by
all means illegal because it breaks the law by infringing on citizen
rights. It has no legal fortitude or developmental base. The dilemma of
secrecy exposes the crime of land grab and explains why it is carried
out behind closed doors out of the arena of public scrutiny. This
dilemma characterizes land grab and stigmatizes it apart from other
investments.
In Ethiopia a land and water grab deal is always
hidden from journalists, opposition leaders and the people. This creates
distrust and frustration among citizens. The government continues to
lease large areas of arable land but citizens have no right to know
about the agreements or how their revenues will be spent. Land farmed
for generations by one family can overnight become leased to foreign
investors for up to 99 years.
Why do leaders do this? What is their profit?
The
answer is easy. There are two major calculated profits. The first is to
prolong or maintain seats of leadership and, or positions of power.
Most governments who are accused of bad governance or dictatorial style
leadership and those which have no public support will by nature cling
to supports which enable them to retain their control, positions or
power. One of the calculations of such is that by giving away their
citizens land they can for all intents and purposes “buy” supporters.
Land grabbers know that if there is political change, if there is
democracy then there secret dealings will no longer be profitable to
them.
This bad business creates a conundrum where land grabbers may
support bad government as much as they can at the expense of citizen
benefits. This climate consequently will breed suspect and fear from the
opposition that land grabbers play a negative role in their struggle
for democracy, justice and even good governance.
The other
negative impact of bad business practices such as land grabbing can be
seen in the glitz economy. Glitz style of growth is a term proposed by
Dr. Aklog Birara used to express the superficiality of growth when it
does not impact citizen lives. Governments may get money from land deals
of palm oil, flowers or bio fuel for agribusiness. This exchange is not
expected to be proportional to the value of the land but it is used to
build tall buildings and luxury hotels to give the outward appearance of
prosperity and wealth. Meanwhile people are starving, out of work,
desperate and isolated from the economic elite enjoying the benefits if
the glitz economy.
Land and water grabbing activity not only takes the above mentioned risks but also undermines social responsibility.
God Bless!
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