Large scale land acquisition to be modernized
By Hannah Awadzi, GNA
Stakeholders in land administration, on Wednesday discussed details of a project that aims at ensuring socially responsible land-based investments.
The Responsible Investments in Property and Land (RIPL) project seeks to develop country specific guidelines for responsible large scale land acquisitions and investments.
Nana Ama Yirah, Executive Director of the Community Land Development Foundation (COLANDEF), a nongovernmental organization that works in the land sector at an inception workshop to kick start the project, said there is the need for communities to be involved in large scale land acquisition process.
“In many land-based agricultural investment, the benefits received by local smallholder farmers and communities are outweighed by involuntary loss of their land rights and the accompanying threats to their livelihood,” she said.
Nana Yirah said the project is designed to work with stakeholders in Ghana to develop a model that can be used to guide investments in the country.
The one-year project is to be jointly implemented by the Community Land Development Foundation (COLANDEF) and Landesa, a USA based NGO with funding from DFID.
Nana Yirah said the RIPL project would focus on using the principles found in the international guidelines such as the FAO Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Land and other similar international guidelines to produce guidelines that take into consideration the local context and dynamics in the land sector in Ghana.
She said the project will work to ensure responsible investments, increase sustainable agricultural production and help generate higher incomes.
