Collective Action & Property Rights News: PUBLICATIONS: New Materials on Land Deals, Commercial Pressures, and Gender Implications

Thursday, February 03, 2011

PUBLICATIONS: New Materials on Land Deals, Commercial Pressures, and Gender Implications

Oxfam UK has assembled a helpful list of recent publications related to land rights that is sure to be of interest to CAPRi members. Four recent additions to the list offer new analysis of the ongoing issue of (international) land deals.

The Gender Implications of Large-Scale Land Deals. Julia Behrman, Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Agnes Quisumbing, IFPRI Discussion Paper 01056. Includes overview of phases of land deals and their gender implications, further evidence using recent case studies from Indonesia and Mozambique, promising initiatives and recommendations, identification of knowledge gaps. Date: January 2011
Gendered impacts of commercial pressures on land. Elizabeth Daley, International Land Coalition & Mokoro. An analysis of the gendered impacts of commercial pressures on land, based on a review of the literature and ILC’s country case studies, including Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda and Benin. In the present global context of increasing pressures, women are both likely to be affected differently to men by large-scale land deals and disproportionately more likely to be negatively affected than men because they are generally vulnerable as a group.
A historical perspective on the “Global Land Rush”. Chris Huggins, International Land Coalition. Includes the globalisation of food production and consumption – structural changes within the international food regimes and contract farming and global commodity chains; contemporary land acquisition; conceptual frameworks – human rights and corporate social responsibility perspectives; case studies of Rwanda and Kenya.
Land deals in Africa: What is in the contracts? Lorenzo Cotula, IIED. Includes how much land is being acquired, and by whom?; over the heads of local people: who are the parties to the deal?; the economic disequilibrium of the contract: what resources, in exchange for what?; what safeguards for local people and the environment?; discussion. Drawing on legal analysis of 12 land deals from different parts of Africa, discusses the contractual issues for which public scrutiny is most needed, and aims to promote informed public debate about them.