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	Land grabbing over past decade has seen millions of people displaced from their homes and farmlands by Inclusive Development, Global Witness   December 2016   Following the Money: Illuminating the path to justice for global land grabs, by Natalie Bugalski and David Pred.   This year, our organization, Inclusive Development International, launched the Follow the Money initiative – a new tool to fight land grabs and other corporate abuses. It’s a simple idea, but we believe it has the potential to be a game-changer.   Every year, more than 15 million people are forcibly displaced from their land, housing and the natural resources they depend upon to make way for large-scale agro-industrial plantations, hydropower dams, mines and power plants. Rarely are they compensated for what they have lost.   A forced eviction is one of the most all-encompassing human rights violations. Victims face impoverishment, homelessness, food insecurity, psychological trauma, reduced access to basic services, and the breakdown of social networks and cultures, to name a few.   In most places where land grabbing and forced evictions are commonplace, from the slums of Lagos to the vanishing forests of Southeast Asia and indigenous territory of Central America, victims have little access to justice to challenge their displacement or seek redress after the fact.   Advocates working to support these communities face an uphill and often insurmountable battle because the corporate and political elites, who are the storm troopers of the global land grab, are able to operate with impunity.   They act unfettered by courts or other institutions, which rarely serve to protect the rights of the poor. Campaigns to make the government or the company accountable so often lead to naught and efforts fizzle at a dead end. But there is often more than meets the eye.   Behind many land grabs is a web of actors: local and transnational corporations and their subsidiaries domiciled in multiple jurisdictions; private and institutional equity and debt investors, including commercial banks, pension funds, insurance firms, and multilateral and bilateral development banks; commodity traders; refiners; retailers; and consumers. These actors all enable and profit from the dispossession of poor communities.   Many of these actors are bound by laws in their home jurisdictions, as well as operational policies and codes of conduct that require them to do no harm and respect human rights. Others have visible brands and are highly concerned about their corporate image.   But these investment chains — often more like intricate webs stretching across the globe — are almost always invisible to the communities that they impact. And if affected communities and their advocates cannot see and understand the financial web that lies behind the projects that threaten them, they are denied critical information that they could use to devise winning strategies that seize upon points of vulnerability and leverage.   Corporations and financial institutions know that the invisibility of this web is their best armor against attack. Invoking age-old business mantras such as “client confidentiality” and “commercially sensitive information,” the financial sector and big commodity buyers jealously guard against public transparency of their business relationships and transactions.   As a result, the battalion of corporate accountability advocates has been largely flailing in the dark against these invisible leviathans. And that is where Follow the Money comes in.   Upon request from affected communities or their local advocates, we use financial and trade databases and other digital tools used by Wall Street insiders to systematically map the financial backers of harmful investment projects. We then provide that information to the requesters along with tailored advice about potential advocacy opportunities that arise from the investment chain.   The concept is straightforward: the more that affected communities know about who is financing a harmful project upstream, and who is buying the goods produced downstream – all the actors making the project possible and profitable, the more avenues open up for them to secure accountability.   Most of the actors along the investment chain will have some degree of influence over – and responsibility for – the project that is causing harm. The key is to identify the strongest pressure points along that chain in order to determine where communities and grassroots advocates should focus their energy and resources to maximize the chances of success.   The information we assemble is often expansive and complex. Many of the concepts — for example, exotic financing instruments and accountability mechanisms — are completely foreign to impacted communities and often to the local NGOs that support them.   Therefore, an important part of the Follow the Money initiative is to explain the material to communities on the ground in a way that makes sense to them, so that they can make informed decisions about their advocacy strategies.   We developed the Follow the Money to Justice online resource to help build this financial literacy, which is increasingly critical to defending land and resource rights.   It explains how to map investment chains – even without access to expensive licensed databases – by using publicly available information. It also provides guidance on how to collect evidence, get organized and develop tailored multi-pronged advocacy strategies to hold corporate and financial actors accountable.   It draws upon the experiences and lessons learned from community advocates around the world who have successfully challenged harmful investments and shaped development in their regions.   In 2016, we have piloted the Follow the Money initiative in the Mekong region, where we have already mapped the investment chains of some 15 projects. We have investigated hydropower dams, plantations, mines, special economic zones and other harmful mega-projects in Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos.   Our findings so far have repeatedly confirmed our hypothesis that there are strong pressure points, like multilateral development banks, name brand companies and even religious institutions, hidden behind these projects. By identifying these actors, we have opened up new legal channels and advocacy opportunities, which local advocates are now pursuing. We are now gearing up to expand the initiative to other regions.   Following the money to fight land and resource grabs is not a silver bullet. Land rights and environmental justice victories are hard-won, primarily and most importantly through locally-led collective struggles, as we just witnessed with the Standing Rock Sioux’s inspiring victory over the Dakota Access Pipeline. But people’s struggles can gain momentum and even unlikely allies when a light is shone on all the actors that enable and profit from harmful investments.   Over the long term, this initiative seeks to deter irresponsible investment by increasing the legal, financial and reputational costs of profiting from land grabbing and environmental destruction.   We should start to see more rigorous human rights due diligence by financial actors as they realize that human rights violations in their investment chains are more likely to be exposed, and they can no longer hide behind a cloak of invisibility.   * David Pred and Natalie Bugalski are co-founders and directors of Inclusive Development International. Follow the Money to Justice online resources: http://www.followingthemoney.org/   Nov 2016   Tainted Lands: Corruption in Large-Scale Land Deals. (Global Witness, agencies)   How corruption is fuelling the global land grabbing crisis, which has seen millions of people displaced from their homes and farmland.   A surge in land grabbing over the past decade has seen millions of people displaced from their homes and farmland, often violently, and pushed deeper into poverty. As demand for food, fuel and commodities increases pressure on land, companies are all too often striking deals with corrupt state officials without the consent of the people who live on it. Until now, there has been little analysis of the role that corruption plays in the transfer of land and natural resources from local communities to political and business elites.   This report helps plug that gap. Tainted Lands: Corruption in Large-Scale Land Deals, authored by Global Witness, Professor Olivier De Schutter, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), takes the most comprehensive look to date at how corruption is fuelling the global land grabbing crisis.   Corruption enables land grabbing in a number of ways. It can be simply transactional – when state officials accept bribes from a company to gain access to land, for example. It can also be institutionalised – when decision-making in state bodies such as the police, judiciary, or executive is skewed so that business or political elites can ignore national laws to seize land without facing the consequences.   The report makes clear that any efforts to end land grabbing must also tackle corruption, as the two tend to co-exist and are mutually reinforcing. Ensuring that land deals are transparent, corruption-free, and protect the rights of local communities is not only in the interest of those communities. It would also benefit companies and investors since becoming embroiled in a corrupt land deal poses major reputational, financial, and legal risks.   Tainted Lands explores existing frameworks that could help tackle corruption in land deals. It asserts, however, that much more must be done and lays out a set of recommendations for governments, companies, and the financial sector.   Companies, for instance, need to carry out thorough checks on their supply chains and business partners to ensure they aren’t linked to corruption and human rights abuses.   Governments must meanwhile ensure that affected communities are properly consulted and have given their consent before land deals can go ahead.   * Access the report via the link below or external link: http://www.globalwitness.org/en/reports/tainted-lands-corruption-large-scale-land-deals/   * A few other related links: http://landmatrix.org/en/ http://namati.org/ourwork/communityland/ http://www.grain.org/ http://www.farmlandgrab.org/ http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/land-rights-issue http://www.landesa.org/resources/property-not-poverty/ http://skoll.org/2016/03/17/land-rights-intangible-assets-bring-tangible-benefits/ http://www.landesa.org/resources/land-rights-matter/ http://www.wri.org/blog/2016/04/3-reasons-why-community-land-rights-are-not-legally-secure-many-countries http://www.wri.org/blog/2016/04/restoring-africas-degraded-lands-improving-farmers-rights http://www.landcoalition.org/en/news/ilc-launches-report-oxfam-and-rri-common-ground-securing-land-rights-and-safeguarding-earth http://www.iied.org/protecting-land-community-resources-africa#.Vt_6z365Gek.twitter http://www.fidh.org/en/issues/globalisation-human-rights/communities-first-new-training-manual-to-empower-people-affected-by http://business-humanrights.org/en/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2016/04/land-tenure-still-a-challenge-for-women-in-latin-america/ http://solidgroundcampaign.org/ http://bit.ly/2bWlefL http://business-humanrights.org/en/community-action-platform Visit the related web page
	Overfed and Underfed: Global Food Extremes by Joseph Chamie Inter Press Service   Global food extremes of chronic undernourishment and obesity have brought about a bipolar world of hundreds of millions of underfed and overfed people. Of the world’s population of 7.5 billion the proportions suffering from chronic undernourishment and those afflicted by obesity are similar, approximately 11 percent or together about 1.6 billion people.   However, as with most global averages, the levels of both chronic undernourishment and obesity vary enormously among regions and across and within countries.   Various indicators may be used to determine the levels of chronic undernourishment, including caloric intake, poverty, mortality/morbidity, weight and height measurements, child wasting and child stunting as well as composite indexes. In this analysis, the focus is on undernourishment, defined as a person not able to acquire enough food to meet the daily minimum dietary energy requirements over a period of one year.   Almost all of the chronically undernourished, more than 800 million people, live in developing countries, primarily in Africa and Asia. The reminder of the chronically undernourished, about 15 million people, reside in developed countries.   The populations of some 40 countries are facing serious food shortages. In a dozen of those countries no less than one-third of the population are suffering from undernourishment, including Haiti, Zambia, Central African Republic, Namibia, North Korea and Chad.   Levels of undernourishment can also vary greatly within countries. For example, while the proportion undernourished in Nigeria is reported to be comparatively low among developing countries, about 7 percent, much of the population residing in its northeastern region is at risk of famine.   India and China also have relatively low proportions undernourished, 15 percent and 9 percent, respectively. However, due to their very large populations those two Asian countries account for a large share of the world’s undernourished population, about 40 percent or 330 million people. Other countries having tens of millions of undernourished people include Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.   In four countries – Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen – the shortages of food have become extreme with more than 20 million people facing starvation and famine.   In addition, the populations of countries with insufficient data on undernourishment are believed to be facing serious food shortages, including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Sudan and Syria.   More recently, crisis-stricken Venezuela is also experiencing widespread food shortages. With skyrocketing food prices, approximately 90 percent of the Venezuelans are reported not able to afford to buy enough food and close to three-fourths of them are estimated to have lost weight during the last year.   At the other extreme of food consumption is obesity. In general, obesity is defined as excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to ones health. A common population measure of obesity is the body mass index (BMI), which is a person’s weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of his or her height (in meters). An index of 30 or more is in most instances considered obese.   Close to 11 percent of the world’s population, or approximately 780 million people, is considered obese. High rates of obesity, typically more than 25 percent of people aged 15 years and over, are reported for the populations of many developed countries as well as for those of some developing countries.   The highest rates of obesity, typically no less than 40 percent of adults, are observed in the small South Pacific island nations, including Kiribati, Samoa and Tonga. Other countries with high obesity rates among those aged 15 years and over are: the United States (38 percent), Saudi Arabia (34), Mexico (32), New Zealand (31), Hungary (30), Australia (28), the United Kingdom (27), South Africa (27) and Canada (26). In contrast, some of the lowest rates of obesity are found among Asian populations: Japan (4 percent), India (5), South Korea (5), Indonesia (6) and China (7).   The country with the largest number of obese people aged 15 years and over is the United States, at approximately 100 million. In second and third places are China (80 million) and India (50 million). Together those three countries account for 30 percent of the world’s obese population aged 15 years and over.   As is the case with chronic undernourishment, obesity rates within countries vary considerably by gender, region, income and social group. In most countries, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and the United States, women have markedly higher rates of obesity than men. Globally, approximately one in ten men and one in seven women are obese.   Also among major social groups, for example in the United States, obesity rates can vary significantly. The highest obesity rate in the US is among black Americans (48 percent), followed by Hispanic Americans (42), white Americans (35) and Asian Americans (12).   Since the obesity epidemic began, not a single country has seen a reversal of trends. While fewer than one in ten people in OECD countries were obese 1980, obesity rates have doubled or tripled in subsequent decades and are continuing to rise.   Obesity levels are projected to be higher in the coming years, especially as obesity among children has increased substantially worldwide. Childhood obesity in the United States, for example, has more than tripled since the 1970s and now stands at about one in five school-aged children having obesity. Also, a recent report of European countries found that obesity rates were higher in younger adolescents than in older adolescents.   Childhood obesity is considered one of the most serious public health challenges as it puts those children at greater risk of type 2 diabetes, asthma, musculoskeletal problems and future cardiovascular disease, as well as school absence, psychological difficulties and social isolation. To effectively address childhood obesity, some argue that obesity must be considered a disease.   The two food extremes – chronic undernourishment and obesity – are worldwide challenges, impacting the well being of more than one-fifth of humanity. Widespread chronic undernourishment, especially in Africa and Asia, has resulted in increased levels of misery, child wasting/stunting, morbidity and premature mortality.   Many have concluded that the current food shortages encompassing approximately one billion people constitute the largest humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II.   Also, as the obesity epidemic continues to spread globally, growing numbers of men, women and children are facing increased health risks, including cardiovascular disease (mainly heart disease and stroke), type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, musculoskeletal disorders, breathing problems and some cancers, often resulting in substantial disability and premature death. In addition to the serious health consequences, obesity has substantial economic costs, including medical care, job absenteeism, lower productivity and disability.   Certainly, a great deal has been said, written and actions taken concerning chronic undernourishment and obesity. Numerous local, national and international organizations are focused on these two food challenges, having adopted various policies, recommendations and goals and established relevant programs to address the issues. In particular, the international community of nations has made commitments to eliminate hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition by 2030 and also to promote and protect health through nutritious diet, healthy eating and increased physical activity.   Nevertheless, despite the expressed concerns, laudable goals, increased expenditures and commendable efforts, two critical questions concerning undernourishment and obesity remain largely unanswered. What to do when millions of people not able to grow or buy sufficient food become chronically undernourished? What to do when millions of people put on so much weight that they become obese?   Until those two fundamental questions are effectively resolved, the global food extremes of chronic undernourishment and obesity are likely to persist well into the foreseeable future.   * Joseph Chamie is a former director of the United Nations Population Division. Visit the related web page
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