When ‘best practice’ means formalising
Foreign large-scale land investments on customary tenure in Uganda and Sierra Leone
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6449152 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carolin Dieterle (0000-0001-9884-4321, Global Development Institute (GDI), University of Manchester, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 847-870 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Review of International Political Economy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0969-2290 • E-ISSN: 1466-4526 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09692290.2025.2451149 |
| OpenAlex | W4406680953 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 45 |
Against the background of the global ‘land rush’ debate, the international community has promoted a plethora of global governance norms for more responsible land investments. A growing emphasis has been set on the formalisation of land rights to protect local communities from dispossession. By now, there is an expectation on companies to identify and protect legitimate land rights and practice principles such as Free Prior Informed Consent. However, how companies do this is under-researched and varies widely. More importantly, whether the recognition and documentation of local land rights in the context of large-scale investments leads to the protection of these rights remains unclear. This paper analyses cases of land investments on customary land in northern Uganda and Sierra Leone, in which investors have facilitated processes of land formalisation. Based on 13 months of fieldwork, this paper argues that the extent to which global norms become effective in these cases is conditioned by the domestic context of land politics, the degree of recognition of customary tenure in practice, as well as the different approaches of investors in interpreting the land tenure security norm
Agriculture · Archaeology · Business · Customary land · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Land tenure · Land titling · Political science · Scale (ratio · Sierra leone · African history and culture studies · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Land Rights and Reforms
The Politics of Resource Extraction
Rising Global Interest in Farmland
Rules without Rights
Global Governance Meets Local Land Tenure
Legal Empowerment of the Poor through Property Rights Reform
Power / Knowledge / Land
Missing the Bigger Picture
An inherited animus to communal land
The global climate of land politics
The FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests
Land Grabs Today
Outsourcing governance
The hidden costs of global supply chain solutions
Formalization as Development in Land and Natural Resource Policy
Responsibility to the rescue? Governing private financial investment in global agriculture
The Tragedy of the Grabbed Commons
The ‘new’ African customary land tenure. Characteristic, features and policy implications of a new paradigm
Renegotiating customary tenure reform – Land governance reform and tenure security in Uganda
Land formalization turned land rush
Formalising village land dispossession? An aggregate analysis of the combined effects of the land formalisation and land acquisition agendas in Tanzania
Customary land disputes and the commoditisation of rural land in Africa
Land tenure and property rights
Large-scale land acquisitions, state authority and indigenous local communities
Variations of Customary Tenure, Chiefly Power, and Global Norms for Responsible Land Investments in Sierra Leone
Rethinking Private Authority
Scrambling for the promised land
Conflicts over land and threats to customary tenure in Africa
Unintended Consequences of Land Rights Reform
Agricultural Investment in Ethiopia
Customary vs Private Property Rights? Dynamics and Trajectories of Vernacular Land Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
Decentering emergent truths on tenure security
Policy processes of a land grab
Intergenerational land conflict in northern Uganda
Introduction
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |