Students of the University of Benin have achieved a major feat: they built a car. The vehicle was built for the Shell Eco-marathon competition. It was exhibited recently at the 2015 conference and exhibition of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) in Lagos.
On the occasion of the fourth year commemoration of the release of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Assessment of Ogoniland (4 August 2015), the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) and other groups have called on the administration of General Muhammadu Buhari to tackle the myriads of environmental challenges besetting the Niger Delta.
The ERA/FoEN, Amnesty International, Centre for Environment, Human Rights, and Development (CEHRD), Friends of the Earth Europe and the National Coalition on Gas Flaring and Oil Spills in the Niger Delta (NACGOND) urged Buhari to tackle oil pollution and corporate impunity that has plagued the Niger Delta for decades.
In the letter, the groups said: “We are pleased that in its first one hundred days your administration has raised this important issue and convened a stakeholder meeting on 28 July between the government, UNEP, the oil industry and representatives of affected communities. We hope that this meeting signals the start of a meaningful process to implement UNEP’s recommendations.”
UNEP’s scientific study exposed the large-scale, continued contamination of the water and soil in Ogoniland, and the serious threat this poses to human health. In one case, UNEP found that a community drinking well was polluted with benzene, a cancer causing substance, at levels 900 times above the World Health Organisation guideline.
The report presented to the Goodluck Jonathan administration on 4 August 2011, also confirmed that the oil company Shell has systematically failed to adequately clean up pollution for which it is responsible. UNEP found that Shell’s clean-up methods in Nigeria, and the maintenance of its infrastructure, do not meet international best practice or even comply with the company’s own standards.
UNEP recommended the establishment of an Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority tasked with overseeing a clean-up operation, funded by an initial $1 billion contributed by the oil industry and the Nigerian government. It also recommended strengthening regulation of the industry, monitoring public health, and emergency measures to address the grave risks faced by the people of Ogoniland from contaminated water. In addition, UNEP made clear that Shell must overhaul its remediation procedures in Nigeria so that clean-up of oil spills is effective.
However, four years on, these recommendations remain almost entirely unimplemented while the people of Ogoniland and the wider Niger Delta are forced to live with the devastating effects of oil pollution. For 50 years, pollution from the oil industry has damaged the health, the livelihoods, and the environment of the people of the Niger Delta.
The groups urged the Buhari administration to make the implementation of the UNEP report a priority, even as they specifically demanded the:
Despite the severity of the findings of the environmental assessment of Ogoni environment by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) four years ago, very little has been done by way of implementation of its recommendations, the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has said.
In a media statement on Monday, the group said that the response of the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan was the setting up of the Hydrocarbons Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP) whose “anachronistic” name and its being domiciled in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources (a key polluter) effectively rendered it dead on arrival.
“The HYPREP was set up a year after the UNEP report had been issued and its most visible accomplishments have been the installation of billboards on oil theft and ubiquitous signposts in Ogoni communities to keep off their contaminated communities. Perhaps the only salutary step may be the ongoing consultations on what to do about the UNEP report a full four years after the fact of its submission,” says HOMEF director, Nnimmo Bassey.
He recalls that President Buhari pledged that his administration would implement the UNEP report, adding that this fourth anniversary is a good time for the Federal Government to commence the process in a more tangible manner indicating the grasping of the emergency nature of the toxic environment in which the Ogoni people have been forced to live in.
“Provision of potable water remains a key emergency requirement in this situation. We note that while the UNEP Report on Ogoniland is yet to be addressed, other communities in the Niger Delta, notably the Egi community in Rivers State, have demanded for a ‘Forensic Environmental Audit of Egi Land’,” Bassey notes.
In a letter dated 14 July 2015 and addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari and copied the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Egi Joint Action Congress (EJAC) states, among others, that they are “host to Total Elf Petroleum Nigeria Ltd (TEPNG). With about 12.5% of the total on-shore oil production of Nigeria, Egi Land is the highest oil producing community in Rivers State, and in Nigeria.”
An accompanying report by EJAC regrets that “TEPNG having contributed largely to the environmental and socio-economic destruction of Egi Land by its oil and gas activities over the period 1964 to 2015, as a result of insincerity in carrying out its social responsibilities, is reportedly making surreptitious efforts to divest its equity interest apparently to a foreign company, without due regard to the sorry state it has plunged Egi Land.”
A community leader, M.T. Igwe, says: “It is glaring that exploration of mineral resources brings wealth and prosperity to the nation but to the Egi man it brings destruction, doom and death, marginalisation, degradation and hazards.”
HOMEF notes that the cry of the Egi people against land grabbing in their communities, gas flaring, oil spills and waste dumping are emblematic of all other communities ravaged by oil exploitation related environmental incidents. The EJAC report states for instance that the environmental damage caused by an oil/gas blowout at Obagi in 1972 is yet to be remediated a full 43 years after, the group adds.
“As we mark a sad passage of four years of inaction on the UNEP report, we believe that further delay will be immoral, unkind and cruel,” says Bassey.
“President Buhari has a golden opportunity to fulfil his campaign promise to implement the UNEP report and should do so expeditiously. The call for a forensic environmental audit of Egi Land should also be responded to with a Niger Delta wide environmental audit and consequent remediation. Further delay passes a death sentence on both the land and the peoples of the region. Just as the polluter Shell Petroleum Development Company paid for the assessment of the Ogoni environment, Total Elf Petroleum Nigeria Ltd should pay for the assessment of the environment of Egi Land. Likewise should Chevron, ExxonMobil and others in their territories of despoliation,” Bassey stresses.
Rural communities within the federal capital territory are being provided access to clean and renewable energy for cooking, lighting, water supply and health care delivery under the SE4ALL initiative
Night is fast descending on Zhiko Village. But Bako Ayuba’s pace is slow, as he meanders his way among the bushes, heading towards the health centre. It’s a journey he has gotten used to – the short, post-dinner trip from home to the community hospital.
The night is pitch-dark and moonless as Ayuba, a Junior Community Health Extension Worker (JCHEW), arrives at the hospital and settles in for the night shift. He dozes off in the darkness. But he is soon jerked out of his reverie by noises – panicky footsteps and urgent voices. He puts on the kerosene lamp, but the light flickers briefly and goes off. He realises the lamp has run out of fuel.
But there is no time to attend to that now, for a heavily pregnant woman obviously in labour in the company of her husband requires his urgent attention. He fumbles in the desk drawers and fishes out a torchlight. The woman’s companion holds the torch as Ayuba attends to the patent.
Ayuba’s story is a typical scenario of events prevalent in rural communities prior to interventions by the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative. He still looks shaken as he recalls his experience that fateful night.
“The baby was safely delivered, and mother and baby were okay. But it was quite an experience delivering a baby with a torchlight. But that is all in the past now. We now have light constantly and I now treat and attend to patients all through the night. In fact, we have more effective treatment, delivery of babies and administration of injection.
“Before now, we got our vaccines at great expense from elsewhere (Abuja or Bwari). But we now store and preserve our vaccines, such that we now have more potent drugs,” he says.
Early this year, the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) initiated a project on “Expanding access to off-grid renewable energy (solar and biomass)-based SE4ALL in Bwari, Abuja”, with the villages of Tokulo, Zhiko, Sunape, Yaupe and Goipe as beneficiaries. The overall objective of the project is to utilise the existing renewable energy resources available in the select
After a little misunderstanding with her parents in Calabar where she is based, Hannah ran away from home. She soon got “lucky” when she was offered an “honourable” and “well-paying job” – abroad. She was eventually recruited from Edo State and, in the company of other girls and a male chaperone, travelled by road for several days through the Sahara Desert to Bamako, Mali.
But, alas, once in Mali, she was forced to prostitute – albeit without restraint, while her madam takes virtually all the money. It was a situation akin to slavery as she had no choice but to “work” long hours so as to make enough money to refund the madam’s “huge investment” on her.
After several attempts to escape, Hannah was eventually rescued by officials of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) – but, according to them, there are still hundreds of hapless Nigerian girls in Bamako prostituting for peanuts.
Bukola, a Lagos-based journalist, travelled to the United States on official assignment. But she was convinced by a US-based Nigerian she’s betrothed, to stay back after her mission – even though she lacked the legal status to do so. She agreed.
Soon after, she became an object of exploitation by her “husband”, who made are to do menial jobs and collected the money paid her. Indeed, he exploited her vulnerability: she could not go around freely, could not get a decent job, nor operate a bank account – she stayed indoors doing hairdressing work and having no say on how her income is spent.
Unable to withstand the situation any longer, she eventually fled home and sought help from government and civil society officials, who rehabilitated her.
Both Hannah and Bukola were victims of Trafficking in Persons (TIP) and Smuggling of Migrants (SOM), but now actively involved in campaigning against the menace. They voiced out their predicament recently in the company of a team of communicators at a Media Roundtable organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Calabar, capital of Cross River State.
Abimbola Adewunmi of UNODC explained that the event presented an opportunity for the anti-human trafficking agency to network with the media in order to fashion out ways of addressing the numerous cases of human trafficking and irregular migration in Nigeria.
Sylvester Atere, also of UNODC, said the mass media represents an opportunity for better visibility and reportage on the interventions of the anti-human trafficking activities in Nigeria, therefore the extent of the partnership with the press cannot be over-emphasised.
Director of Public Enlightenment at the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Arinze Orakwue, underlined the need for constant interaction between law enforcement agencies and the media so as to better equip them and build their capacities towards ensuring better human trafficking reportage. He said such mind rubbing sessions would help identify the root causes of TIP and SOM and fashion more pro-active solutions to them.
Godwin Morka, the NGAX41 Project Coordinator, said government is resolute is bringing down TIP and SOM but also counting on the support of the press whose responsibility it is to spread the word. According to him, the project is coming to an end but the media should continue to carry on with the fight through their platforms.
Atere made an attempt at defining the two technical words of TIP and SOM and their inherent relationships, saying TIP and SOM happen in tandem and sometimes it is very difficult to tell the differences. He also identified that clandestine nature of human trafficking and the complexities.
At the close of the two-day forum, participants resolved that there should be prompt update of partners and media practitioners on the emerging issues, as well as press releases or events from NAPTIP. Journalists as media partners should be involved in major developmental issues of TIP and follow-up mails and phone calls should be made where necessary.
It was also agreed that the media partners be involved in the processes of the annual TIP Reports of the government, in the light of its importance for better media coverage of the report.
Besides creating and operating social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp for prompt disseminations of information and networking, participants also underscored the need to imbibe professionalism with particular reference to the electronic media.
Similarly, it was agreed that regular dialogue, media briefing and capacity building of the media partners on identifying victims to be done by the government.
Other resolutions at the Roundtable include:
Guinness Nigeria Plc has commissioned a water health centre in Adigbe community in Ogun State, in an apparent bid to impact lives positively in communities where it operates.
Situated within Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, the facility was formally unveiled at a special commissioning event by the Deputy Governor of Ogun State, Yetunde Onanuga. The event was also attended by other key stakeholders including: the Acting Consular General of the United States Consulate, Dehab Ghebreab, representatives of Water Health International and members of Adigbe community.
The water facility consists of a borehole and an ultramodern water treatment unit, such that the water in the facility goes through a six-stage purification process to remove organic matter, excess chlorine, bad taste, dirt, unwanted materials, dissolved inorganic solids, bacteria and pathogens. The facility is capable of providing 2,700 litres of clean water hourly.
Speaking at the event, Corporate Relations Director, Guinness Nigeria Plc, Sesan Sobowale, said the construction of the facility is in furtherance of Guinness Nigeria’s commitment to helping Nigerians access clean drinking water.
He said: “Many Nigerians still do not have access to clean drinking water; in response to this situation, we have leveraged our flagship ‘Water of Life’ programme to increase the number of Nigerians who have access to clean and safe water.
“Under the aegis of the ‘Water of Life’ programme, Guinness Nigeria has so far constructed water facilities in 22 communities across 14 states of the country. We are pleased to note that through these water projects, we have helped thousands of Nigerian families to access clean water, and ultimately improve their overall health and wellbeing.”
Also speaking at the event, the Governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun, represented by his deputy, Yetunde Onanuga, praised Guinness Nigeria for implementing impactful programmes that help address the challenge of water shortage in Nigeria. She noted that the construction of the water facility exemplifies the positive results derivable from collaborations between corporate organisations and their host communities.
She said: “I congratulate Guinness Nigeria for its impressive sense of corporate responsibility in building this water scheme for our community. It is without a doubt, a project that will go a long way in addressing one of the crucial needs of our community. The people of Adigbe will never forget Guinness.
“Other corporate organisations should emulate Guinness Nigeria by making impactful contributions that enhance the wellbeing of communities through meaningful, result-oriented projects.”
The Adigbe facility – the company’s third in Ogun State – was implemented in partnership with Water Health International, an international organisation that provides drinking water to communities (primarily rural areas) around the world. The partnership between Guinness Nigeria and Water Health International will ensure the sustainability of the new facility.
A total of 100 delegates representing 56 companies from Nigeria and the United Kingdom explored opportunities for collaboration at the annual Nigeria-UK Supplier Engagement programme organised by Shell Nigeria Exploration Company Ltd (SNEPCo) in conjunction with the United Kingdom Trade and Investment (UKTI). The event which held in Lagos on 30th July brought together companies engaged in a wide variety of activities in the oil and gas industry including engineering, maintenance, fabrication and subsea support services. The UK delegation, which included Nigerian experts in the diaspora who SNEPCo had reached in previous bus+iness summits in Aberdeen and London, first met with Shell Companies in Nigeria companies on areas of need and technical gaps.
Osagie Okunbor, Chairman, Shell Companies in Nigeria and Managing Director of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), observed: “The striking feature of this year’s business summit is the presence of Nigerians in the diaspora in the UK delegation. It shows that, our engagements with Nigerians to take up opportunities back home in the oil and gas industry, is being well received, and this is good news for everybody.”
The UK delegation also held networking meetings with their Nigerian counterparts which included several members of the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN). “Shell has a long-term and continuing commitment to Nigeria, its people and the economy,” said Chiedu Oba, General Manager, Nigerian Content Development, Shell Nigeria in a welcome address. “One of the most significant ways we have delivered on that commitment is by increasing the participation of Nigerian companies and individuals in our supply chain and operations – to ensure that as many Nigerians as possible benefit from our activities and business.”
The General Manager Production PSC in the National Petroleum Investment and Management Services (NAPIMS) enjoined the participating companies to work towards taking advantage of upcoming opportunities in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. He reiterated the importance of local content in the growth of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. UKTI Director Chris Maskell thanked Shell for the continued support on the Nigeria-UK Supplier Engagement programme.
Also speaking at a reception organised by UKTI for the suppliers, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Contend Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Denzil Kentebe, lauded the Shell initiative to foster partnerships that will help local vendors strengthen their technical capability.
SNEPCo initiated the Nigeria-UK Supplier Engagement programme in 2009, and has this led to some 27 partnerships between Nigerian and UK companies with another 43 partnership discussions progressing well. Shell Companies in Nigeria are major contributors to the national economy, not only through the energy they produce and the revenues generated, but also via achievements in supply chain, local content and social investment.
The Earth Day Network has taken up a campaign to convince the government of Zimbabwe to stop issuing hunting permits that result in thousands of animal deaths each year. One of such permits was issued to hunt vulnerable animals like Cecil.
An American dentist, Walter Palmer, paid $55,000 to shoot and kill the 13-year-old vulnerable lion in Zimbabwe.
Hunting is illegal inside Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Palmer and his guide lured Cecil out of the sanctuary using an animal carcass as bait.
They shot him with a bow and arrow, and then tracked the wounded lion for 40 hours before killing him with a rifle and skinning and beheading him.
Cecil was a symbol of the success of Hwange National Park and beloved around Zimbabwe for his distinctive black mane.
Cecil’s death has ignited a movement to save other vulnerable animals, leading to a global refrain calling on Zimbabwe to stop issuing permits that allow vulnerable animals to be hunted and killed.
The Earth Day Network states: “A hundred years ago, 200,000 lions roamed Africa. Today, there are fewer than 30,000 – and these hunters brought that number down for fun.
“What’s more, they did it in a shameful way that runs afoul of a law that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Hunting vulnerable animals is never acceptable, period. We’re taking action to make sure no other lions are killed.”
Meanwhile, Dr Palmer is nowhere to be found. He has reportedly gone underground in the onslaught of criticism after he killed the prized African lion.
Coalition of NGOs calls on the RSPO, Malaysian government and international buyers for an open investigation into The Wall Street Journal’s findings
On the heels of a major investigative article from The Wall Street Journal exposing serious human rights and labour abuses in Malaysian grower Felda Global Venture’s plantations, a coalition of civil society groups is calling on the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) for an open investigation into the abuses. Conditions including human trafficking, forced labour, and withholding of wages were documented, all of which are violations of the RSPO’s Principles and Criteria, as well as basic human rights.
“Malaysia’s palm oil industry is heavily dependent upon the labour of migrant workers, and time and time again, these workers fall prey to serious exploitation at the hands of their employers or recruitment agencies,” said Glorene Das, Executive Director of Tenaganita, a Malaysian NGO that campaigns for the rights of migrant workers, labourers and women. “The findings found on Felda Global Venture’s plantations must be investigated by the RSPO, as well as the Malaysian government, and immediate action taken,” Das said.
Felda operates over 700,000 hectares of palm oil plantations throughout Indonesia and Malaysia. The company joined the RSPO in 2004 and over 300,000 hectares of its palm oil plantations are RSPO certified. It’s unclear if the plantations visited by the The Wall Street Journal are RSPO certified, but the RSPO does not allow major non-compliances with its Principles and Criteria even on uncertified plantations. Unless immediately remedied, the violations documented by The Wall Street Journal should result in the RSPO revoking the certification of all of Felda’s operations and suspending Felda’s RSPO membership.
“We are calling on the RSPO to openly investigate The Wall Street Journal’s findings,” said Sonja Vartiala, Executive Director of Finnwatch, a Finnish NGO that focuses on global corporate responsibility. “If the open investigation confirms the findings of the WSJ, the RSPO must uphold its own Principles and Criteria and suspend Felda’s membership until these very serious violations are proven to be remedied,” she said.
International buyers named in the article include Cargill, Procter & Gamble, and Cargill customer Nestlé. Many other major buyers are purchasing from Felda directly and numerous others indirectly.
“It is imperative that all international buyers, including Cargill, Procter & Gamble and Nestlé, as well as those unnamed, act immediately to remedy labour violations in their supply chains. If Felda does not remedy all labour violations in a transparent manner, buyers must publicly sever all financial ties with the company,” said Robin Averbeck, Senior Campaigner at Rainforest Action Network.
Malaysia has well-documented, severe problems with the abuse of migrant workers, including widespread forced labour and human trafficking. In 2014, the U.S. State Department’s Annual Trafficking in Persons report gave Malaysia the lowest possible rating, meaning the Malaysian government “does not fully comply with the minimum standards (to end human trafficking) and is not making significant efforts to do so.” Despite the State Department’s recent controversial decision to upgrade Malaysia to the Tier 2 Watch List, there is wide agreement among trafficking experts that abuses continue unabated and the government has failed to take meaningful steps towards addressing its severe trafficking problem.
This is not the first time a prominent RSPO palm oil grower has been in the spotlight for serious labour and human rights abuses on its plantations. In 2014, Finnwatch released a report finding serious labour rights violations in RSPO certified estates in Malaysia. The U.S. Department of Labour has highlighted the widespread use of forced labour in the Malaysian palm oil industry since 2010 in its List of Goods Produced with Child Labour or Forced Labour.
In March of 2015, a coalition of human rights, workers, and environmental organisations and unions from Indonesia, Malaysia, Liberia, North America and Europe released the Free and Fair Labour in Palm Oil Production: Principles and Implementation Guidance. The guide is the first of its kind and details comprehensive recommendations to implement fair labour practices in the palm oil sector.
The increasing trend of international land grabbing – when governments and private firms invest in or purchase large tracts of land in other countries for the purpose of agricultural production and export – can have serious environmental and social consequences. Investors claim that land grabs can help alleviate the world food crisis by tapping into a country’s ‘unused’ agricultural potential, but such investments often do more harm than good, disrupting traditional land use and leaving half a billion family farmers vulnerable to exploitation.
According to the Land Matrix, approximately 130 million hectares of land (or more than 52.7 million football fields) has been acquired globally in settled and impending land deals over the last 15 years. In South Sudan, the country with the most transnational land acquisitions, land has been sold for as little as US$0.025 cents per hectare.
Approximately 60 percent of the food grown on acquired lands is intended for export instead of feeding local communities, according to Oxfam America. Nearly two-thirds of land grabs occur in countries with serious food security problems. In the Nacala Corridor of Mozambique, the Prosavana land grab will acquire 14 million hectares of land, displacing upwards of 500,000 people that already cultivate the area. According to The World Food Programme, about one-third of Mozambique’s 24.5 million inhabitants are malnourished and 500,000 children ages six to 23 months are undernourished.
“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 cooperation,” says Anuradha Mittel, Executive Director of The Oakland Institute, a California-based think tank that researches and calls attention to the most pressing social, economic, and environmental issues.
To highlight how detrimental these land grabs are, The Oakland Institute published a report documenting the effects of land grabs in Tanzania’s Kilombero Valley. The large-scale rice plantation built by the company Kilombero Plantations Ltd (KPL) comprises 20 percent of the valley and has been heralded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as a model investment project.
But, according to The Oakland Institute report, villagers in the region are worse off from before the plantation was built. The villagers were forced to either sell their land or accept new land as compensation. Those who sold their land did not receive the original sum promised by the company, receiving TZS 10,000 (US$6) per acre instead of TZS 30,000 (US$17) per acre. Villagers who chose to be given new, often infertile land would only receive up to three acres, no matter how much land they had before. And many farmers have yet to receive any compensation for their land, leaving them without a livelihood.
The following 15 organisations are working to fight land grabs around the globe.
ActionAid is an international nonprofit organization working to free people from injustice and poverty around the world. Their #LandFor campaign supports families and their rights to keep their farmland. Their publication, Act On It: Four Key Steps to Prevent Land Grabs breaks down the policies and reforms that governments need to do to prevent land grabs. Most recently, they’ve published, New Alliance, New Risk of Land Grabs, examining how the G8 Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition increases the risk of rural communities losing their land to large investors.
ETC Group focuses on how new technologies can impact the world’s poorest people. ETC group has been critical of ‘The New Bioeconomy’, the emerging industrial movement to rely on biologically-based materials for goods and services. These green technologies are prompting a resource grab, primarily in lands and with resources in the global south, which ETC Group has exposed in their book, Earth Grab.
Forest Peoples Programme supports the right of indigenous forest people to defend their lands and their livelihoods. Their reports call awareness to injustices against forest people around the world and defend their rights to land and natural resources. Through programmes and partnerships, Forest Peoples Programme teaches forest people how to deal directly with the policy makers and investors influencing their lives.
Global Justice Now is a social justice organisation that mobilises people to fight for change. Their food sovereignty campaign mobilises people to stop big corporations that are dominating the small-scale farms that are feeding the world. Global Justice Now provides ways to take action against land grabbing and stand by small farmers to support food sovereignty.
GRAIN is an international non-profit organisation that supports non-profits through research, networking, and alliance-building. Their research on land grabs, such as their report on The Land Grabbers of the Nacala Corridor in Mozambique, exposes corporations that are taking advantage of developing countries.
Through advocacy and grant-making, Grassroots International supports the right to land, food, and water for individuals around the world. Their educational resources along with their Land and Hunger: Making the Rights Connection workshop help people learn about the threats of living without the right to land or food. They also work with organisations on local and international levels to defend human rights, such as when they worked with local organisations in Brazil to prosecute the assassins of land rights activist Sister Dorothy Stang.
Institute for Poverty, Land, and Agrarian Studies
A specialist unit at the University of Western Cape, PLASS is dedicated to restructuring and contesting land holdings and the agro-food systems in southern Africa. Their research and postgraduate teaching explore the access and resource use patterns and the relationships between governance and land, water, and natural resource access of the poor.
International Land Coalition (ILC)
With a network of 152 member organisations in 54 countries, ILC works to secure and protect the land rights of individuals, especially women and indigenous peoples. ILC not only features good practices occurring around the world, but they also offer leadership, educational, and networking opportunities. Every two years, ILC hosts the Global Land Forum, which supports equitable access to land through dialog, knowledge, and sharing.
La Via Campesina gathers together peasants, small and medium-size farmers, migrants, and agricultural workers all over the world to support small-scale sustainable agriculture. They work to protect food sovereignty and trade through their campaign and grassroots actions to block transnational corporations and free-trade agreements. ILC represents 200 million farmers worldwide and is a recognised voice in food and agriculture debates.
The Land Matrix Project is a land monitoring initiative that promotes transparency and accountability in land investments. The Project keeps track of official and unofficial land contracts and the different stages of negotiation: intended, concluded, and failed. With more transparent information, The Land Matrix Project hopes to make land development more open with greater community involvement.
For the past 40 years, Landesa has been working to secure land for the world’s poorest peoples. In their campaign, Land Post-2015, Landesa is aiming to incorporate land-rights in the international global agenda after the Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015. The organisation is also putting together how-to guides for responsible land development and investment based on field research and stakeholder involvement that will be adaptable to different countries.
Namati is building a grassroots campaign of legal advocates that are providing support for people living outside the protection of the law. Through quality legal aid, research, advocacy, and a global network Namati is ensuring that people maintain their rights. In Uganda, Mozambique, and Liberia, Namati is helping 23,400 people document their land and protect their land rights. They have also put together a Community Guide to Protecting Lands and Resources.
Oakland Institute is an independent policy think tank whose research sheds light on social, economic, and cultural issues around the world. Their work regarding land rights is dedicated to increasing transparency about land deals, development, and the impact they have in several African countries.
Oxfam International envisions a world without poverty. Part of their work focuses on defending individual’s rights to natural resources. They work with farmers and fishers to defend their resources and also help communities gain legal title to their land. They help give people a voice, like the 260 young people in Curuguaty, Paraguay, who have been left without land because of a land grab.
The World Rural Forum analyses the problems and needs of rural farmers around the world and through meetings with universities, research centres, farmers associations, and NGOs draws up plans of action. Through their online publications and events, The Forum aims to spread awareness about rural development issues as well as promote development proposals.
