Displacement, Intimidation And Abuse: Land Loyalties In Ethiopia - OpEd | Albany Tribune News

Woman working in Ethiopia orchard

Displacement, Intimidation And Abuse: Land Loyalties In Ethiopia – OpEd

By Graham Peebles -- (March 1, 2013)

With the coming of industrial-size farms in Ethiopia, local people, villagers and pastoralists (deemed irrelevant to the Government’s, economically-driven development plans) are being threatened, and intimidated by the military; forcibly displaced and herded into camps, their homes destroyed. Along with vast agricultural complexes, dams are planned and constructed, water supplies re-directed to irrigate crops, forests burnt, natural habitats destroyed. Dissenting voices are brutally silenced – men beaten, children frightened, women raped, so too the land.

Over 80% of the 85 million population of Ethiopia live in rural areas, in settlements and villages, and work in agriculture. Many are small-scale farmers who, according to government figuresi, farm “eight percent (about 10,000,000 ha) of the national land area”, and traditional pastoralists who have, for generations, lived simple lives, culture, nature and livelihood entwined.

Huge tracts of agricultural land with water supplies are being leased to foreign companies for food export. The Oakland Institute (OI) ii, a US- based policy think-tank and leader in the field, have produced in-depth reports on worldwide land sales stating that, between 2008 and 2011, “3,619,509 hectares (ha) were transferred to domestic investors, state-owned enterprises and foreign companies”. Amounting to a third, if government figures are correct, of the land farmed by Ethiopians themselves, an area the size of a small country, e.g. Holland.

Government Genocide

Land grab (and associated water appropriation), Oxfam statesiii, occurs when “governments, banks or private investors buy up huge plots of land to make equally huge profits”. Since 2008 such speculation has vastly expanded; in 2009 alone the OI recorded that “foreign investors acquired 60 million ha of land [worldwide] – the size of France – through purchases or leases of land for commercial farming,” up from an annual average, pre-2008, of 4 million ha. Three quarters of all land deals take place in sub-Saharan Africa, in some of the most food-insecure, economically vulnerable, politically repressive countries in the world; precisely, some say, because of such advantageous commercial factors.

In Ethiopia, land sales are occurring in six key areas. Oromia and Gambella in the south, Amhara, Beneshangul, Gumuz, the Sidaama zone, or SNNP and the Lower Omo Valley – an area of outstanding natural beauty with acclaimed UNESCO World heritage status. The Ethiopian government’s conduct in Omo and Oromia, Genocide Watch (GW)iv considers “to have already reached stage 7 [of 8], genocidal massacres”. A statement that shocks us all, and casts shame upon the government and indeed slumbering donor nations, who act not, who speak not, but know well the cruel methods, which violate a plethora of human rights laws, employed by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). A regime whose loyalties, it seems, rest firmly with investors, corporations, multi-nationals and the like, and who cares little for the people living upon the land, or indeed in the cities.

Forced from Home

Conditional within land lease agreements is the requirement that the government will clear the area of ‘encumbrances’, meaning indigenous people – families, children, pastoralists, cattle, wildlife, forests, anything in fact that will interfere with the leveling of the land, building of [foreign] workers’ accommodation, roads and the eventual sowing of crops.

The national three-year Villagisation program, initiated in 1985, aims to move 1.5 million people from their ancestral homes, over four states, into large settlements. The process is well under way, as these 2010 figures from Cultural Survivalv show, “by February 1987, 5.7 million people (15 percent of the rural population) had been moved into 11,000 new villages. By the end of this year, 10 million rural inhabitants (25 percent of the population) are expected to be villagized in 12 of Ethiopia’s 13 provinces.” Government propaganda justifying the policy states these new village centers will, “facilitate the provision of human social services by concentrating scattered homesteaders into central communities”, and facilitate ‘agrarian socialism’ – hence the leasing of mega chunks of land to multi-national corporations, without the participation of local people, whose land is being taken from them: a totalitarian version of socialism then.

Contrary to federal and international law, which requires the free, informed and prior consent of the people, this mass movement is being carried out without consultation or compensation, no matter the official claims to the contrary. Human Rights Watch (HRW) (28/08/12)vi reports how “Villagers who have been unwilling to move, or who refuse to mobilise others to do so, have been arrested and mistreated by the soldiers.” Once forcibly emptied, villages are destroyed and cattle killed or confiscated, the OI state, by government troops. Along with pastoralists, who number around 300,000 in Gambella alone, villagers are herded, sometimes literally, always metaphorically at the end of rifle, into Villagisation camps. And these, despite Government promises to, “provide basic resources and infrastructure, the new villages”, HRW found “have inadequate food, agricultural support, and health and education facilities”.

Resistance to moving is met with abuse and violence. HRW’s detailed report “Waiting for Death”vii, found that in Gambella, where the government plans to ‘relocate’ 225,000 people, “soldiers frequently beat or arrested individuals who questioned the motives of the program or refuse to move to the new villages [Villagisations]. Community leaders and young men are targeted [scores are arrested without due process]. There have also been credible allegations of rape and sexual assault by government soldiers. Fear and intimidation was widespread.” In a disturbing account of life within and without the Villagisation centers, the OI discovered, most disturbingly, that pastoralists (whose lifestyle and nature is to wander) if “encountered [by the military] outside of villages are told to relocate to the villages immediately”. Such restrictions conjure images of prison life rather than a peaceful, communal village, and contradict the government’s message of willing relocation, good community relations, participation and social harmony.

A Culture of Fear

Such abuse is not limited to Gambella – in the Lower Omo region, where huge, state-owned sugar plantations and the massive Gibe III Dam project are being developed, dissenting voices are, the OI report, subjected to “beatings, abuse and general intimidation”, in addition to extra-judicial prison sentencing.

“Fear and intimidation” is endemic, not just in areas associated with land sales, but throughout the country; suppression is common and freedom of expression greatly restricted. The media – TV, radio, press as well as print companies, are state-owned, so too the sole telecommunication company, restricting access to the internet, which is monitored. The judiciary is simply an extension of government, lacking credible independence, the political opposition marginalised and completely ineffective. International media are frowned upon and, in some areas (e.g. Ogaden) completely banned, such are the paranoid actions of the ruling EPRDF, which, it would seem, has much to hide.

Resentment and anger simmers amongst many displaced oppressed villagers. In April 2012 a group of men attacked the Saudi Star compound in Gambella and killed four employees. The men were quickly labeled ‘rebels’ and a military manhunt was instigated. The criminal act should be treated as such and the men brought to justice, however government forces have reacted with unwarranted unjustifiable violence and aggression to innocent civilians, as HRW (28/08/12) reported: “Ethiopian soldiers went house to house… arbitrarily arresting and beating young men and raping female relatives of suspects”. Any excuse, it seems, to unleash state violence, perpetrated by a regime that mistrusts even it’s own people. After the attack on Saudi Star, a company that has leased some 10,000 ha of prime Gambella land, the Ethiopian military accused four Anuak guards on duty at the time, of involvement in the attack and carried out extra- judicial killings (murder) on them all. Local villagers “alleged they were tortured”, and “women and girls raped either in their homes or in detention” (ibid). Illegal acts by the Ethiopian State that by any reasonable reading fits the definition of terrorism stated by the US militaryviii as, “the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.” Terrifying tactics employed by the military in the search for information about ‘the rebels’ – a meaningless term evoking negative stereotypes, used alongside the ‘T’ word (terrorist) to demonise anyone who disagrees with disagreeable government policies and justify all violent measures by the benevolent regime – such is the perverse and dangerous use of language, facilitated by the international mainstream media that has infiltrated our imaginations.

The Myth of Development

The government proclaims land sales are part of a strategic, long-term approach to agriculture reforms and economic development, that foreign investment will fund infrastructure projects, create employment opportunities, help to eradicate hunger and poverty and benefit the community, local and national. The term development is itself an interesting one; distorted, linked and commonly limited almost exclusively to economic targets, meaning growth of GDP, established principally by the World Bank, whose policies and practices in relation to land sales, the OI discovered, “have glossed over critical issues such as human rights, food security and human dignity for local populations”, and its philanthropic sister, the International Monetary Fund; market fundamentalism driving the exported (one size fits all) policies, of both ideologically entrenched organisations, that promote models of development that seek to fulfill corporate interests first middle and last.

Defined in such limited ways, Ethiopia, having somehow achieved impressive GDP growth figures since 2004, (with a dizzy 9.8%, average, similar to that of India) would seem to be in the premiership of development. Inflation, though, sits at 30% and, whilst unemployment in urban areas has dropped to around 20%, over a quarter of young people aged 18-24 remain out of work; high unemployment in urban areas means young women are often forced into commercial sex work or domestic servitude.

Statistics compiled by The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)ix, provide a broader, less GDP-rosy picture of the country. They place Ethiopia 174th (from 187 nations) on the Human development index (HDI), with average life expectancy of 59 years and 40% of people living in poverty (on less than $1.25 a day). The 2012 Global Hunger Index makes Ethiopia the 5th hungriest country in the world (IFPRI)x, with between 12 and 15 million people a year relying on food aid to keep them alive. What growth there is benefits the rich, privileged minority. There is a growing divide between the 99.9% and the small number of wealthy Ethiopians – who, coincidentally, are mainly members of the ruling party trickle down, gushing up’, concentrating wealth with the wealthy; as the Inter Press Service (IPS) 22/08/12xi reports, “development has yet to reach the vast majority of the country’s population. Instead, much of this wealth – and political power – has been retained by the ruling party and, particularly, by the tiny Tigrayan minority community to which [former Prime Minister] Meles belonged.”

“Protect, Respect and Remedy”

Protagonists laying claim to the all-inclusive healing powers of agriculture and agro-industrial projects, contradict, the OI states, “the basic facts and evidence showing growing impoverishment experienced on the ground”. What about the bumper benefits promised, particularly the numerous employment opportunities? It turns out industrialised farming is highly mechanised and offers few jobs; overseas companies are not concerned with providing employment for local people and care little for their well-being, making good bedmates for the ruling party. They bring the workers they need, and are allowed to do so by the Ethiopian government, which places no constraints on their operations.

Such shameful indifference contravenes the letter and spirit of the United Nations (UN) “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework. Endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council on 16th June 2011, the guiding principles outlined, “provide an authoritative global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse impacts on human rights linked to business activity.”xii Corporations have a duty under the framework to “prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations… even if they have not contributed to their impacts”xiii Although not legally enforceable, these principles of decency offer recourse to human rights organisations and community groups, and should be morally binding for multinationals, whose profit-driven activities in Ethiopia, facilitated by a brutal regime that ignores fundamental human rights, are causing intense suffering to hundreds of thousands of indigenous people.

Notes:
i. http://www.fao.org/ag/AGP/AGPC/doc/counprof/ethiopia/ethiopia.htm
ii. www.oaklandinstitute.org/faqs-indian-agriculture-investments-ethiopia
iii. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-us/our-campaigns/grow/guide-to-land-grabs
iv. http://www.genocidewatch.org/ethiopia.html
v. http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/resettlement-and-villagization-tools-militarization-sw-ethiopia
vi. http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/08/28/ethiopia-army-commits-torture-rape
vii. www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/…/ethiopia0112webwcover_0.pdf
viii. http://ra.defense.gov/documents/rtm/jp1_02.pdf
ix. http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/ETH.html
x. http://www.ifpri.org/publication/2012-global-hunger-index
xi. http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/death-of-ethiopian-leader-meles-brings-opportunity-for-peace/
xii. http://www.unglobalcompact.org/Issues/human_rights/The_UN_SRSG_and_the_UN_Global_Compact.html
xiii. www.ohchr.org/Documents/…/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf

 About Graham Peebles
Graham is an artist, writer and director of The Create Trust, he founded in 2006. He has run education projects & teacher training programs in Palestine, India and Ethiopia, where he spent two years working with local groups in Addis Ababa. A long time student of the Ageless Wisdom Teachings, and eastern philosophy, he is currently writing a series of essays on education. Contact: graham@thecreatetrust.orgst.org 
View all posts by Graham Peebles →

Indian land grabs in Ethiopia show dark side of south-south co-operation | Anuradha Mittal | Global development | guardian.co.uk

The takeover of peoples' land and water by corporations – even if they are from the global south – is a new form of colonisation

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Women pick pigeon pea in eastern Ethiopia, where 80% of the population are engaged in agriculture. Photograph: Mark Tran for the Guardian

The idea of south-south co-operation evokes a positive image of solidarity between developing countries through the exchange of resources, technology, and knowledge. It's an attractive proposition, intended to shift the international balance of power and help developing nations break away from aid dependence and achieve true emancipation from former colonial powers. However, the discourse of south-south co-operation has become a cover for human rights violations involving southern governments and companies.

A case in point is the land grab by Indian corporations in Ethiopia, facilitated by the governments of both countries, which use development rhetoric while further marginalising the indigenous communities that bear the pain of the resulting social, economic and environmental devastation. It is against this scenario that international solidarity between communities affected by the insanity of a development model that prefers profits over people is reclaiming the principles of south-south co-operation.

Ethiopia's late prime minister, Meles Zenawi, welcomed India's expanding footprint in Africa as essential for his country's wellbeing, a vision shared by his successor, Hailemariam Desalegn. The Export-Import Bank, India's premier export finance institution, gave the Ethiopian government a $640m (£412m) line of credit to develop the controversial sugar sector in lower Omo. Indian companies are the largest investors in the country, having acquired more than 600,000 hectares (1.5m acres) of land for agro-industrial projects.

With 80% of its population engaged in agriculture, Ethiopia is home tomore than 34 million chronically hungry people. Every year, millions depend on aid (pdf) for their survival. Amid such hunger, large-scale land deals with Indian investors are portrayed as a win-win situation, modernising agriculture, bringing new technologies and creating employment.

Research by the Oakland Institute, however, contradicts such claims. Most of what is produced is non-food export crops while tax incentives offered to foreign investors deprive Ethiopia of valuable earnings. The promises of job creation remain unfulfilled as plantation work at best offers menial low-paid jobs.

Worse still, the Ethiopian government is using its villagisation programme to forcibly relocate (pdf) about 1.5 million indigenous people from their homes, farms and grazing lands to make way for agricultural plantations. Those who refuse face intimidation, beatings, rapes, arbitrary detention and imprisonment, and even death. The repression of social resistance to land investments is even stipulated in some land lease contracts: "[it is the] state's obligation to 'deliver and hand over the vacant possession of leased land free of impediments' and to provide free security 'against any riot, disturbance or any turbulent time.'"

It was to challenge this form of south-south co-operation that the Oakland Institute, in partnership with Indian civil society groups the Indian Social Action Forum (Insaf), Kalpavriksh and Peace, organised an Indian-Ethiopian summit on land investments in New Delhi in February. Obang Metho of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia and Nyikaw Ochalla from the Anywaa Survival Organisation, members of the Anuak community of Gambela, Ethiopia, travelled to India with shocking testimonies of how their community has been dispossessed of livelihoods, ill-treated and subjected to misery while the Ethiopian government leases land to Indian corporations at giveaway prices.

This coming together of Indian and Ethiopian civil society groups marks a turning point in the struggle for land rights and livelihoods in the two countries and beyond. For the first time, the agony of communities who face human rights abuses as their lands are taken over has reached the investors' doorstep, sending a powerful message to the investors and governments of Ethiopia and India. At the same time, it initiated a rewriting of south-south co-operation where the takeover of communal lands that have been homes, grazing grounds and water sources for generations, by corporations – even if they are from the global south – is being recognised as a new form of colonisation. It was a starting point, and plans for further collaboration are under way.

Unlike the Ethiopian leaders who met the Indian business delegations in person, Metho and Ochalla did not get a hearing with Indian government officials, despite several requests. Instead, it was activists who are challenging land grabs across India who travelled to New Delhi to meet them. They told how control over land and natural resources is spurring violent clashes in nearly 130 districts of India. Meanwhile, reports came in that 12 platoons of police had moved in on villagers in Govindpur and Nuagaon in Odisha, to forcibly clear lands for the Korean Steel Posco project. Women and children were beaten indiscriminately and people were arrested as they tried to prevent the demolition of their betel vineyards – one of the most viable local livelihoods.

We need to challenge the paradigm of development that trivialises and ignores the human consequences of these land acquisitions by corporate investors and governments. The idea that "some have to be sacrificed" for the "larger national good", which is nothing more than the double-digit economic growth that benefits a few, must be rejected – even if the deals are between developing countries and framed by the rhetoric of south-south co-operation.

• Anuradha Mittal is founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, an independent policy thinktank based in Oakland, California

Ethiopia's Abundant Farming Investments Leave Many Still Hungry - YouTube

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Ethiopia's resettlement scheme leaves lives shattered and UK facing questions | Clar Ni Chonghaile in Dadaab | Global development | guardian.co.uk

Ethiopia's resettlement scheme leaves lives shattered and UK facing questions

A 'villagisation' programme has left many people from Ethiopia's Gambella region bereft of land and loved ones, casting donor support in an unflattering light

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• • Clar Ni Chonghaile in Dadaab
  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 January 2013 12.14 GMT

A family in Kir, Gambella. Ethiopia's controversial resettlement programme has forced people to leave their villages. Photograph: Jenny Vaughan/AFP/Getty Images

Mr O twists his beaded keyring between his long fingers as he explains why he started legal action against Britain's international development department over its aid funding to Ethiopia. Three other refugees from the Gambella region listen as he speaks in a stifling room in north-eastern Kenya. All have a story to tell.

The accounts are broadly similar, but the details reveal the individual tragedies that have shattered their lives: they say they were forced to leave their villages, beaten by soldiers, and sent to remote areas lacking all basic services under a controversial "villagisation" programme.

Eventually, they fled to Kenya, joining nearly half a million displaced people living in the world's biggest refugee complex, a sprawling expanse of tents and rudimentary houses set in the sun-hammered scrub and sand outside Dadaab.

"We don't have any means of retrieving our land. We decided to find an organisation that could be our lawyer and stand up for us so that those who are funding these organisations to displace us will be stopped," Mr O said. He spoke through a translator in the language of the Anuak, an indigenous people who live in Ethiopia's western Gambella region.

"Britain is a very big power in the world. Britain is Ethiopia's top donor," says Mr O, whose identity is being protected for his safety. The 32-year-old wears a stained white shirt, white trousers and a blue-beaded bracelet on his left hand.

London-based law firm Leigh Day & Co has taken the case for Mr O, arguing that money from the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) is funding the villagisation programme.

Ethiopia is one of the biggest recipients of UK aid and Britain, alongside other international donors, contributes significant funding for theProtection of Basic Services (PBS) programme. Lawyers for Mr O say that, by contributing to this programme, DfID contributes to villagisation, be it by financing infrastructure in new settlements or paying the salaries of officials overseeing the relocations.

DfID says it does not fund any commune projects in Ethiopia. A spokesman said the agency was aware of allegations of abuses and would raise any concerns at the highest levels of the Ethiopian government. Leigh Day is waiting for a response to its letter to the UK government in December.

The three-year villagisation programme aims to move 1.5 million rural families to new "model" villages in four regions, including approximately 45,000 households in Gambella. Official plans say the movements are voluntary, and infrastructure and alternative livelihoods will be provided in the new villages.

In January 2012, a Human Rights Watch report said the Ethiopian government was forcibly relocating thousands of people in Gambella, with villagers being told the resettlement was linked to the leasing of large tracts of land for commercial agriculture.

For the four Anuak in Dadaab, relocation has been a catastrophe: Mr O has not seen his wife and six children since he left, Peter's wife was raped by soldiers, widow Chan and her eldest son were beaten, and Ongew was detained 11 times on charges of inciting villagers. The four did not want to give their full names for fear of retribution.

There is a desperate sense of powerlessness among the refugees, who link the recent abuses to years of alleged targeting of their ethnic group, including a 2003 massacre of Anuak in the town of Gambella. "I feel so very bad because I have been separated from my family, which shows we do not have the power to protect ourselves … Unless you decide to leave that area there will not be hope for you," Mr O says.

Powerlessness

Peter, a 40-year-old who lost his sight 20 years ago, bows his head as he tells how he was beaten when he asked the soldiers to take his disability into account before moving him in October 2011. Then, his wife was taken away and raped.

"I'm powerless. There was nothing I could do to stop that. Also, my cousin was taken by the soldiers and is still missing today," Peter says. He left through South Sudan and arrived in Kenya with his wife and five children in March last year.

When soldiers came almost two years ago to move Chan, a 37-year-old farmer and mother of four, they beat her on the arm and face with a stick. The skin on the right side of her face, just below her ear, is uneven and marked. The soldiers also beat her then 18-year-old son on the head with a gun. Nobody could fight back.

"Because we don't have power," she says, her hands upturned helplessly on her lap. "Whenever these soldiers come to a village, there are very many. How will you fight? If you try to beat even one soldier, they will attack the whole village."

Chan, whose husband was killed during the 2003 massacre, moved to the new village. "There was no water, no school, no clinic, not even good farm land because it is dry land," she says. People were still being abused, so she decided to leave with her children. She arrived in Kenya last February. Despite the creeping insecurity in the Dadaab refugee camps, she says life is better "because nobody is coming to beat you in your home".

Mr O, then a farmer and student at agricultural college, was forced from his village in November 2011. At first he would not leave, so soldiers from the Ethiopian National Defence Force beat him with guns. He lifts the faded black baseball hat he is wearing, marked with the words "Stop violence against women", and shows a thin, long scar on his head. Strong men were forced to lie down and then beaten while women were also beaten, and those who resisted were taken and raped in a military camp, he says.

He was forced to a "new place" which did not have water, food or productive land. He was told to build a house for his family, but when work didn't progress as quickly as expected, he was taken to a military camp and beaten again. After one month he left, sneaking past village leaders and "local militias" who controlled the area, refusing to let people leave. He arrived in Kenya in mid-December 2011.

Ongew, a 35-year-old wearing a red baseball cap and blue jeans, believes the international community can stop the alleged abuses. "There are powerful countries that control the world. So we are requesting those international communities … to stand firm and force Ethiopia to leave our land and stop this villagisation," he says.

Ongew used to distribute food to the new villages for the government but when villagers began to complain about the absence of services, he was blamed for inciting them. The father of four was beaten many times. He gets news of his family sometimes from a relative in Britain. He has heard that police have repeatedly questioned his wife about his whereabouts.

Mr O's wife and children are now in a new village. He has not seen them since he left but news of them reaches him through new arrivals.

The four Anuak say the relocations are continuing, with new refugees still arriving in Kenya.

Mr O says he is not taking legal action in order to get money. "Money will not bring any change for me and my family … What we want from the court is our land back. We will go there, produce what we like, and we will support our lives as before."

How Africa could feed the world – Global Public Square - CNN.com Blogs

November 6th, 2012

10:35 AM ET

How Africa could feed the world

By Olusegun Obasanjo, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Olusegun Obasanjo is a former president of Nigeria and a member of the Africa Progress Panel, chaired by Kofi Annan. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Images of starving children, epitomised in news coverage from Ethiopia in the 1980s, have given Africa a reputation for famine that does an injustice to the continent’s potential.

It’s true that a recent report by three U.N. agencies said nearly 239 million in Africa are hungry, a figure some 20 million higher than four years ago. And recent crises in the Horn of Africa and Sahel certainly highlight the desperate uncertainties of food supply for millions – malnutrition still cuts deep scars into progress on health and education.

But the Africa Progress Panel and many others believe that Africa has the potential not only to feed itself, but also to become a major food supplier for the rest of the world

Consider, for example, Africa’s agricultural land. According to an influential recent analysis, Africa has around 600 million hectares of uncultivated arable land, roughly 60 percent of the global total.

And on the land that is being used, outdated technologies and techniques mean productivity is low. African cereal yields, for example, are just over one-third of the developing world average and have barely increased in 30 years. One major issue is that as much as 80 percent of Africa’s agriculture still depends on rain not irrigation.

So what should be done to increase agricultural productivity in Africa?

First, African and donor agricultural policies must focus on the smallholder farmers. Some African governments see the efficiencies of large scale commercial farming as a means to increase productivity. But Africa cannot increase its food production, create jobs and reduce poverty on the scale required without unlocking the potential of smallholder agriculture.

In addition, Africa’s rapidly growing youth population makes job creation an urgent matter for many of the continent’s governments. Already, nearly two out of three Africans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

And in countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya, agriculture is key to reducing poverty. In these countries, agricultural growth has been shown to reduce poverty twice as fast as any other sector.

Governments must invest in infrastructure that gives these smallholders better access to markets, including storage facilities to keep produce in good quality, and new and better roads. Governments must also invest in research and development to help smallholder farmers access new techniques and technologies such as drought resistant seeds. They should encourage innovations in information and communication technologies, which may also help to involve young Africans in the sector.

Second, African government s must deal with the land grab issue, as mentioned in an earlier article for this series by my fellow Panel member Michel Camdessus.

Population growth, a burgeoning global middle class, and the search for low-carbon energy sources mean that demand for food and biofuels has shot through the roof. Spotting profit opportunity, foreign investors are scrambling for a piece of the action. They rent land, use the latest agricultural methods (plus precious water from nearby sources), export the food, and make a fortune.

Africa has been at the epicentre of global land deals. Between 2000 and 2011, for example, Africa saw an estimated 948 land deals, covering 124 million hectares – an area larger than France, Germany, and the United Kingdom combined. Many of these transactions involve countries along the Nile and Niger rivers, whose water will be used to irrigate thirsty agricultural schemes. Typically, foreign investors win concessions at low rent and with extensive tax exemptions.

Contracts are often negotiated behind closed doors without consulting affected communities. Indeed, many of these schemes have seen local communities forcibly removed from their land.

Some deals have been complicated for investors, too. In Ethiopia, an armed group ambushed workers from a Saudi-owned agribusiness project, killing five.Analysts say the ambush in April 2012 was linked to the project’s plan to use large amounts of precious water from the nearby Alwero River, upon which thousands of people depend for their survival.

At the Africa Progress Panel, we support the combination of foreign expertise with local knowledge to increase production, generate jobs, and transfer technical know-how. But what Africa does not need, and cannot afford, is the use of African land and water by foreign investors who use Africa’s scarce resources to supply food and biofuels to other countries. And for Africans, the benefits of large-scale land acquisitions have been questionable.

Africa’s smallholder farmers need protection in such deals. The African Union should develop a framework for managing foreign investment in agriculture, and governments should assess large-scale land deals and consider a moratorium pending legislation to protect smallholder farmers.

Third, governments and others must help smallholder farmers manage risk more effectively. Crises in the Horn of Africa and Sahel have highlighted the risks faced by smallholder farmers, who are barely able to feed themselves and their families as it is.

Governments and donors should provide cash or food that enables rural producers to get through the difficult periods of drought, for example, without compromising long-term productivity or withdrawing their children from school. Governments and donors should help household enterprises reduce their dependence on agriculture.

Fourth, we want to see the international community devote more money and more effort to improving food security and nutrition in Africa, an issue that goes to the heart of so many other development challenges. By weakening a child’s resistance to disease, malnutrition is a major contributor to child mortality. Aglobal study in 2008 found that an average one third of all child deaths were related to malnutrition.

The Panel welcome this year’s Camp David G-8 commitments to launch a New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. This New Alliance aims to lift 50 million people out of poverty over the next decade. And we will be watching eagerly when the United Kingdom assumes presidency of the G-8 next year.

Fifth, and finally, the international community should step up their support for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Higher temperatures, increased water evaporation, less predictable rainfall, increased water stress and an expansion of drought zones is likely undermine production. Cassava and maize yields could fall by 15 percent and 30 percent respectively by 2050, for example. And research by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) suggests that climate change effects alone will push an additional 1 million children into malnutrition by 2030.

At the Africa Progress Panel, we hope these risks and the enormous opportunities of a growing global market will lead African governments to invest in agriculture and raise productivity. We fear that such risks could lead to a dramatic worsening of poverty and malnutrition among vulnerable communities.

But while rich countries have been spending billions of dollars on climate change adaptation, such as flood defenses, Africa has been receiving peanuts.

One recent study for Tanzania concluded that an annual investment of $100 million in adaptation for smallholders – encompassing support for small-scale irrigation, terracing, rural roads and research – would prevent annual losses of several hundreds of millions of dollars.

Consider that while the U.K. spends $1.2 billion annually on flood defenses, African nations receive just $100 million to $200 million for climate adaptation through the specialized multilateral funds created for this purpose. This amounts to what Desmond Tutu has aptly described as “adaptation apartheid.”

African leaders and their partners must all do more to shape the continent’s mighty farming potential. One day Africa could feed the world. But first it must feed itself.