South Sudan

The film shows a contract worth just US$25,000 (Dh92,000) for 600,000 hectares of land, with full exploitation rights, made out to Howard Douglas, a former United States ambassador and coordinator for refugee affairs.

On Al Jazeera’s talk show South2North, Redi Tlhabi debates the new scramble for Africa with former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano, Nigerian politician Nkoyo Toyo and Philippe Heilberg, a land investor from the US.

An ex-Wall Street banker jets off to South Sudan to show how investors are rushing to Africa in a modern-day land-grab. Watch Al Jazeera 'Witness'.

The land grabs are not an Equatorian issue. It is a national problem that should not be looked at from a regional or tribal perspective.

Land grabbing, which is the acquisition of land without regard for the interests of existing land rights holders, and disagreements regarding boundaries between counties and payams (districts) will also be addressed by the policy.

Includes presentations on large-scale farmland investment in Sudan by public and private sector representatives.

"Today, all patriotic Africans are weeping when they see how African governments are giving out African lands, dispossessing the African people of their ancestral land, for practically next to nothing, in the name of attracting foreign investors!", writes Abba Mahmood

GRAIN looks behind the current scramble for land in Africa to reveal a global struggle for what is increasingly seen as a commodity more precious than gold or oil - water.

In South Sudan, between 2007 and 2010, about 9% of the total land surface was leased or in the process of being leased for large-scale land investment.

Egypt’s Citadel Capital has been busy defending its work in Africa, such as in South Sudan where it has taken a number of measures to ensure its agribusiness project benefits the local community and doesn’t step on small farmer toes.

To date, Citadel Capital has invested US$ 25 million in the Concord farm project, which makes us by far one of the largest investors in South Sudan outside the oil industry.

The bottom line is that it is the responsibility of the host governments to set policies and a legal framework that protect their citizens’ interests – by encouraging investment, and protecting the rights of affected individuals.