Africa’s Flexed Land Grab Lunge

With attention focused on foreign agricultural investor acquisition of millions of hectares in places like Ethiopia and Sudan, the World Bank compiled a comprehensive land policy governance strategy to guide official and business interaction which would entail $4.5 billion in joint commitments over the next decade. Sub-Sahara Africa has half the world’s uncultivated area, and only one-tenth of rural space is registered. According to Transparency International and Food and Agriculture Organization studies administration is corruption-prone especially with low professional capacity and employment. Technological advances allow for cheaper mapping and plotting and database access and automation. Both communal and individual ownership can be titled and transferred and urban squatters could get formal rights. With this foundation rental markets could better operate and gender equity would offer the same control and bidding scope to women. Currently property deals take twice as long and are double the cost of developed-countries, and even partial computerization as in Ghana and Uganda cut processing time 75 percent. Dispute resolution is often missing as the courts are clogged with real estate cases. Quasi-judicial methods like arbitration can save years and traditional elder mediation can be recognized through a certification process. New laws should stipulate expropriation procedures and compensation, and valuation and tax treatment should reflect published guidelines. Countries with large open tracts specifically targeted for FDI include Angola, the DRC, Tanzania and Zambia and they receive priority in a separate African Development Bank plan. The document concludes that the push will generate GDP growth, poverty reduction and conflict alleviation benefits exceeding the cost, and companies could pay for technical assistance and infrastructure upgrades in their individual and collective interest. Since land is as much a political and social as economic issues many pan-African agencies such as the AU and UN bodies should also be involved and tapped for expert and financial contributions, it recommends.

Angola’s new $5 billion sovereign wealth fund run by the president’s son has promised to disclose joint venture terms under adherence to the voluntary Santiago Principles codified in response to Western worries over Asian and Gulf purchases in sensitive industries. Banks and utilities have already been targets in former colonial master Portugal, where the government is struggling to keep its EUR 80 billion bailout coalition intact. The Finance Minister has been replaced and pension fund allocation limits have again been finessed to ensure a captive Treasury bond base. Mozambique is another Lusophone Africa destination for surplus Portuguese graduates and employees in the midst of its own luxury property boom in the capital after natural resource and tourism FDI more than doubled to $5 billion in 2012. Headline 8 percent GDP growth has widened the income gap as doctors on lagging sate salary went on strike. It ranks at the very bottom of the UN’s 185-nation Human Development Index on increased citizen rebellion against wealth grabs.