A five and a half minute video demonstrating that from cookies and ice cream to soap and shampoo, every second product in supermarkets contains palm oil. New oil plantations grab land and destroy the environment in e.g. Sierra Leone. Demonstrates that there is also a fair and environmentally friendly alternative way.
Our new feature film from Roy Maconachie and Simon Wharf explores the pathway of a diamond from mine to market, and asks the question, who really benefits?
Through a review of recent writings in political ecology and agrarian studies, this paper appraises the potential for emerging forms of ‘green economy’ initiatives to catalyze new forms of internal displacement in West Africa, with specific emphasis on the postwar contexts of Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The Block Farm-Model
The SPIRAL-Project (the "Project"), financed by the UK government under the LEGEND Challenge Fund and implemented by Deutsche Welthungerhilfe ("WHH") and a private-sector partner (the "Investor"), establishes and tests a fair, transparent, and inclusive business approach (the CPC model) for responsible land-based agricultural investments in the Sierra Leonean Cocoa Sector.
The UK Department for International Development (the “DFID”) plays a strong role in driving changes towards improving land rights protection, land-tenure information and responsible private sector land investments in developing countries. With funding from DFID’s LEGEND Challenge Program, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe (“WHH”) currently tests the CPCModel in partnership with a Sierra Leonean Investor under the SPIRAL-Project (the “Project”).
The report focuses on Sierra Leone (SL), which has placed a high priority on private sector investments over the last decade to support agricultural development. The country has experienced a significant increase of (mainly foreign) investments based on LSLAs, yet few of which are in an advanced stage. The study is based on several of palm oil and cocoa sector investment case studies. Both sectors are very relevant for SL’s economy and have seen several private sector investments.
This paper was written as part of the research initiative entitled Engaging the Business Community as a New Peacebuilding Actor. It is a joint project of the Africa Centre for Dispute Settlement (ACDS), CDA Collaborative Learning Projects (CDA), and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
We, leaders of groups of women affected by the expansion of industrial monoculture plantations, particularly oil palm plantations, coming from all regions in Sierra Leone and different countries from West and Central Africa;
We, national and international organizations involved in the struggle for the rights of women and local communities in Africa, Latin America and Asia, signatories of this declaration, met from 14 to 15 August 2017 in Port Loko, Sierra Leone.
There is wide engagement with large-scale land deals in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly from the perspectives of development and international political economy. Recently, scholars have increasingly pointed to a gendered lacuna in this literature. Engagement with gender tends to focus on potential differential impacts for men and women, and it also flags the need for more detailed empirical research of specific land deals.
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