Implications of Land Grabbing and Resource Curse for Sustainable Development Goal 2 in Africa: Can Globalization Be Blamed?

Abstract

Globalization, as described by Joseph Stiglitz in his books Globalization and its Discontents and Making Globalization Work, draws on both pains and gains. These two seemingly incompatible positions, where globalization is used as a platform to partner or collaborate with other countries by grabbing lands for sustainable developmental initiatives such as the attainment of SDG 2, but ends up dispossessing the host communities of their lands, form the crux of this paper. Although not all land grabbing is illegal, especially if lands are leased within the confines of a country’s land tenure laws, the reality in some African countries shows that lands are grabbed without following land tenure laws. This partly limits the capacity of African countries to effectively control and monitor the activities of foreign land grabbers or investors on leased lands. This loophole in the governance of arable lands in Africa has made many foreign partners use Africa’s arable lands for their own benefit at the expense of Africa’s food sovereignty initiative. It has partly made Africa appear to be a resource-cursed region, where it can hardly feed its population despite its global partnerships and huge land resources. Drawing on systematic desktop reviews of the literature, this study asks if globalization is contributing to Africa’s hunger index and resource curse. The findings expand the discussion on how Africa is still not able to feed its population and end hunger, despite the potential offered by globalization. It suggests approaches through which Africa can optimize globalization in ways that support determined efforts at ending hunger in Africa.