The Green Belt Initiative and Land Grabs in Malawi | Land Portal

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Date of publication: 
January 2012
Resource Language: 
ISBN / Resource ID: 
eldis:A63087

FAC Policy Brief 55by Blessings Chinsinga and Michael Chasukwa There is often a mismatch between the apparent benevolent intents and the practical manifestations of the large scale land deals. The empirical realities of the large-scale land deals call for critical scrutiny and interrogation of the underlying interests of the stakeholders involved to assess the extent to which they genuinely prioritize win-win scenarios. As the experiences of the Green Belt Initiative (GBI) in Malawi demonstrated, the smallholder farmer is almost always the loser. This raises doubt as to whether the international initiatives such the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) voluntary guidelines on responsible governance of tenure of land and other natural resources; the World Bank’s principles for responsible agricultural investment; and the Africa Union’s (AU) framework and guidelines on land policy shall make any significant difference on the actual outcomes of the large-scale land deals across the continent.

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Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Chinsinga, B

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The Future Agricultures Consortium is an Africa-based alliance of research organisations seeking to provide timely, high-quality and independent information and advice to improve agricultural policy and practice in Africa.


Through a network of over 90 researchers across the region and around the world, we are showing how agricultural policy in Africa can help to reduce poverty and strengthen agricultural growth.


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eldis (ELDIS)

Eldis is an online information service providing free access to relevant, up-to-date and diverse research on international development issues. The database includes over 40,000 summaries and provides free links to full-text research and policy documents from over 8,000 publishers. Each document is selected by members of our editorial team.


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