Tree plantation of UK company MIro Forestry, one of the cases covered in the reportCivic Response | July 2017Assessing community consent in large scale land investments in Ghana
by Benjamin Arthur and Kwame Mensah
Executive Summary
Large land acquisition is a major issue now more than ever, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa which is seen as the hub of large unused and available agricultural lands. The global food crisis in 2008; the need to acquire large lands to produce biofuels; carbon capturing and other local demands have renewed this interest for land. An IIED publication in 2009 concluded that between 2004 and 2009 over two million hectares of forest were acquired in Ghana, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Mali. The World Bank projections, also of 2009, avers that about 56 million hectares of large scale land deals were announced before the end of the year. Commercial agriculture, despite its challenges, continues to be seen by developing countries as a route to development, triggering the establishment of mechanism to fast-track land acquisitions for investors.
One of the crucial elements during the land acquisition process is the role of tenant farmers, community members, and landowners. The Free Prior Informed Consent concept provides an avenue to address concerns of local communities and indigenous peoples in land acquisitions in implemented right. Civic Response, with funding support from the EU sought to interrogate the application of elements of this principle in selected areas of large land acquisitions for forest-related projects. The study used the mix method of data collection and worked on three case studies. The study also used desk reviews, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. Three cases studies cut across the three geographic zones of the country.
The review of literature conirms that poor governance is a major driver of questionable large scale land acquisitions. This includes challenges such as the inappropriateness and inadequacy of policies and laws, and inadequate capacity of state oficials or local elites, and the failure of state institutions to enforce these laws related to land acquisition. Environmental conservation projects such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+); need of biofuels and other carbon capturing projects intended to generate carbon credits are likely to cause landgrabbing. The weak environmental and social requirements in some Foreign Direct Investments have also fueled easy large scale land acquisitions. The legal basis for land acquisitions in Ghana is deined in many laws; both local and international, policy documents. These include the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, the Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703), the Ghana Land Policy 1999, the Administration of Lands Act- 1962 (Act 123), the State Lands Act 1962 (125), Land Registry Act, 1962 (Act 122), Land Title Registration Act (1986) and a host of other relevant legal provisions. The challenge remains the complicated laws in the lands sector of Ghana. Besides the laws and policies, Ghana has signed-up to major international conventions which bother on respect for human rights, respect for rights of indigenous people, but not the International Labor Organisations Convention (169) on free informed consent.
Analysis of findings concludes that consent for land acquisitions do not happen as intended under FPIC and it varies from place to place. In some areas, consultation with the traditional authority was construed as the consent of the community. Information within the community about processes of how existing large land acquisitions happened was very limited in all the case studies. Little information could imply limited involvement of the larger community. The case of migrant farmers, in all case studies, also shows that their voices or consent was not a subject of discussion in the land acquisition process. Local community awareness on FPIC was as very limited as much as their understanding of legal means to redress. Most of the land acquisitions were consistent with the Ghana Constitutional provision which limited
leases of lands by foreigners to no more than 50 years. The Land Matrix data, however, shows an acquisition which is quite surprising. The inability of the researchers to have copies of each of the land deals didn't allow for more comprehensive legal analysis of the process for the land deal. In general, the study revealed that large scale land acquisitions in the country, especially within the frame of Customary tenure do not meet the FPIC guidelines and the requirements of most of the laws and policies of the country.
The land acquisitions had differentiated impacts on either settler farmers or indigenes, as well on different genders. Access to secondary forest, fallow lands or marginal lands is significantly limited due to the acquisition of such lands. Compensation is tied to the security of tenure over the land under cultivation, hence the women and migrant farmers received little or no compensation for the loss of this lands. Impacts on food security could not be immediately accessed, however, in the long term the loss of lands for small holder farmers who mostly feed the local populations, and sell their excesses to markets, would significantly reduce and would significantly impact the cost and availability of food at the local and more broadly the national level.
The study identifies and recommends the need for better monitoring of the scale of large land acquisition due to the lack of consent reached at consensus at the local level. Traditional authorities taking decisions by themselves without the inputs of locals including women and tenant farmers is not a healthy practice. There is also the need for CSOs to enhance the awareness of local communities about how to secure their tenure rights. joined to this the need for consolidated of land laws to make land administration easier. There is the need for the state to play a stronger role as protector of rights of local people by ensuring that land acquisition conform to law. There is also the need to reexamine the role and place of the Forestry Commission and their right to commit forest reserves to third parties for forest plantations without the prior approval of local authorities.
