LAND RIGHTS
The last twenty years have seen the rapid acquisition of large plots of land in the global south by national and international elites, often referred to as land grabbing. Land grabbing can be defined as the control of land – whether through ownership, lease, concession, contracts, quotas, or general power – for purposes of speculation, extraction, resource control or commodification. (Ecoruralis 2016)
Land grabbing is a violation of human rights by threatening access to food and livelihoods. The new land proprietors often favor profitable export of their crops or minerals over feeding the hungry. Peasant farmers lose access to their land and thus their income and nutrition. The environmental health of the land is compromised as industrial forms of agriculture are implemented.
CIDSE is supporting the resistance of land grabbing in Africa, by connecting church actors with social movements and organising spaces for exchange. In 2015, CIDSE contributed to the organisation of a Pan-African Conference on Land Grabbing and Just Governance in Kenya, which brought together church and non-church actors to exchange knowledge and strategies on land grabbing, resulting in the establishment of a permanent platform called “Our land is our life” for these purposes. A similar conference was organised again in 2017 in Abidjan. The reflection and discussion on land grabbing from the perspective of Laudato Si’ and Catholic Church social teachings that began at the conference in Abidjan was then concretized in a paper on the theology of land grabbing to facilitate the opening of a concrete dialogue on land issues with church actors.
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Manny Yap
yap(at)cidse.org
Stories
Publications
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Land grabbing and Just Governance Conference
November 23, 2015Find here a collection of case studies presented during the conference with contact details for interviews.
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Press release: Land grabbing and just governance discussed in a
November 23, 2015The conference will highlight the state of land grabbing in Africa, cases of resistance across the continent, as well as […]
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Migrant and refugee crisis in Europe: a time to act
September 10, 2015In the first seven months of 2015, 340 000 migrants and refugees arrived in the European Union (EU), according to […]
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Press release: Agro-colonialism in the Congo: European and US development
June 8, 2015Several prominent development finance institutions (DFIs) are funding Feronia Inc., a Canadian agribusiness company accused of land grabbing and human […]
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Regaining control of food systems
May 8, 2015CIDSE held a workshop exploring synergies with food producers, social movements, civil society organisations and its member organizations