This paper examined the extent to which Large-scale Agricultural Land Investments (LALIs) has delivered on its promises (e.g. increased productivity, job creation, and rural development, particularly for rural women). We conducted empirical analyses using the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) dataset (macro evidence), which was complemented with two case studies of LALIs in Kilombero district, Morogoro region, Tanzania (micro evidence). The findings from the study revealed that the LALIs have limited effect on agricultural wage.

Land as an essential resource is becoming increasingly scarce due to population growth. In the case of the Kenyan coast, population pressure causes land cover changes in the Arabuko Sokoke Forest, which is an important habitat for endangered species. Forest and bushland have been changed to agricultural land in order to provide livelihood for the rural population who are highly dependent on small-scale farming. Unclear land rights and misbalanced access to land cause uncontrolled expansion and insecure livelihoods.

Support for large scale agricultural investments in Africa has been mainly premised on their employment prospects for local populations. However, despite earlier calls by Tania Li to centre labour in the land grabs debate, labour is generally invisible in both mainstream policy and academic research. This paper, through a governance lens, draws attention to the implications of the global land rush on wage labour.

“Land matters” – more than ever! Can land be dealt with like other resources or – in terms of an economic perspective– forms of capital. Or does it attract particular meanings, sentiments, interests, acquisition strategies or social relations?

Land tenure issues are becoming increasingly important worldwide. Problems such as high population pressure, increases in resource degradation, food shortages, transformations of political systems and regional and supra-regional resource conflicts have brought the land issue to the public's attention.

Women disproportionately bear the negative impacts of large-scale land investments (in agribusiness, extractives, logging) in the global South.

▪▪Lack of formal land rights and their subordinate role in the household and community lead to the marginalization of women in decision-making processes and the bypassing of them in the distribution of compensation and the planning and implementation of resettlement.

Countries have publicly announced their commitments to restore degraded forests and lands.This report comes at a time when many countries are fully engaged in the challenging task of implementing their LDN targets and Bonn Challenge pledges with a goal to achieve them by 2030.

In terms of innovative mechanisms, economic and financial mechanisms that rely on regulationand markets to provide incentives for environmental stewardship are also relevant. These mechanisms include different types of regulations and direct or indirect payments schemes, for example tradable development rights, trading of emission reduction and payment for environmental services.
Investment based mechanisms, like microfinance, are other types of mechanism that can provide financing for UNCCD and SLM practises.

Policymakers and land managers around the world are struggling to use our finite land and resource base to increase agricultural production, ensure resilient ecosystems and improve livelihoods. Many are turning to integrated landscape management (ILM) as a framework for inter-sectoral planning and investments to reduce potential trade-offs and realize inherent synergies.

In terms of innovative mechanisms, economic and financial mechanisms that rely on regulationand markets to provide incentives for environmental stewardship are also relevant. These mechanisms include different types of regulations and direct or indirect payments schemes, for example tradable development rights, trading of emission reduction and payment for environmental services.
Investment based mechanisms, like microfinance, are other types of mechanism that can provide financing for UNCCD and SLM practises.

This report explores how the management of land-based biomass production and consumption can be developed towards a higher degree of sustainability across different scales: from the sustainable management of soils on the field to the sustainable management of global land use as a whole. Under business as usual conditions, the growing demand for food and non-food biomass could lead to a gross expansion of cropland in the range of 320 to 850 million hectares by 2050.

In this study, the authors aimed at explaining private-sector investors’ intention to invest in Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) and analysing their motives for making investments that promote sustainable development. Regarding the actual intention to invest in LDN, the majority of investors showed rather weak intention to make investments that promote LDN in the near future.