Accountability in Africa's land rush: what role for legal empowerment?

Summary

Recent years have seen a renewed investor interest in acquiring farmland for agricultural investments in the global South, largely driven by a fast evolving global context that results in higher and more volatile agricultural commodity prices. Whilst investment in agriculture can create jobs, improve access to markets and contribute infrastructure for agricultural development, many large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) have been associated with negative impacts for local populations, includingthe dispossession of land and other resources and increased conflict over economic benefits. A growing body of research on LSLAs has emerged over the past few yearsthat has shed much light on the phenomenon, although many aspects of this ‘landrush’ are still poorly understood.

The land rush raises multifaceted and inherently political development challenges. With the stakes so high, there is wide recognition that improved public accountability is critical to promoting democratic decision-making and enabling local voices to be heard, but also to discouraging harmful investments and enabling local groups to geta better deal from incoming investment. Yet lines of accountability are complex andpoorly understood, particularly in contexts of legal pluralism, fragmented landmanagement responsibilities and transnational economic relations. And land dealscut across multiple spheres of governance – from land administration through to thegovernance of international investment flows. Furthermore, the factors that facilitate or undermine public accountability, and the outcomes of growing efforts to promote accountability, are still little understood. The longer term impacts on legitimacy ofpublic authorities and other actors are also uncertain. 

This report assesses the state of evidence on pathways to accountability in the global land rush, with a focus on Africa, and identifies areas for a new research agenda that places accountability at its centre. The report takes a twin-track approach of exploring how the legal frameworks regulating the land rush shape opportunities and constraints in formal pathways to accountability; and how peoplewho feel wronged by land deals are responding to seek justice. These two perspectives broadly reflect the complementarity and convergence of two commonways of conceptualising accountability: ‘accountability as rights’, which focuses onthe substantive rights and transparency of process established by legal and regulatory frameworks, and ‘accountability as power’, which emphasises theimportance of citizen action, power and politics in public accountability. The reportdraws on an analysis of legal frameworks relating to 12 African countries, and on areview of 16 cases of LSLAs for which citizen responses were most extensively documented in the literature.