Four other themes will addressed: politics, economics, the environment and the history of land investments in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to estimates by the International Land Coalition based at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), 57 million hectares of land have been leased to foreign investors since 2007. Current research has focused on human rights issues related to inward investment in land but has been ignorant of water resource issues and the challenges of managing scarce water. This handbook will be the first to address inward investment in land and its impact on water resources in Africa. The geographical scope of this book will be the African continent, where land has attracted the attention of risk-taking investors because much land is under-utilised marginalized land, with associated water resources and rapidly growing domestic food markets. The successful implementation of investment strategies in African agriculture could determine the future of more than one billion people. An important factor to note is that Sub-Saharan Africa will, of all the continents, be hit hardest by climate change, population growth and food insecurity. Sensible investment in agriculture is therefore needed, however, at what costs and at whose expense? The book will also address the livelihoods theme and provide a holistic analysis of land and water grabbing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Four other themes will addressed: politics, economics, environment and the history of land investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. The editors have involved a highly diverse group of around 25 expert researchers, who will review the pro and anti-investment arguments, geopolitics, the role of capitalist investors, the environmental contexts and the political implications of, and reasons for, leasing millions of hectares in Sub-Saharan Africa. To date, there has been no attempt to review land investments through a suite of different lenses, thus this handbook will differ significantly from existing research and publication. The editors are Tony Allan, (Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography, School of Oriental and African Studies and King’s College London); Jeroen Warner (Assistant Professor, Disaster Studies, University of Wageningen); Suvi Sojamo (PhD Researcher, Water and Development Research Group, Aalto University); and Martin Keulertz (PhD Researcher, Department of Geography, London Water Group, King’s College London).

Since the 2008 world food crisis a surge of land grabbing swept Africa, Asia and Latin America and even some regions of Europe and North America. Investors have uprooted rural communities for massive agricultural, biofuels, mining, industrial and urbanisation projects. ‘Water grabbing’ and ‘green grabbing’ have further exacerbated social tensions. Early analyses of land grabbing focused on foreign actors, the biofuels boom and Africa, and pointed to catastrophic consequences for the rural poor. Subsequently scholars carried out local case studies in diverse world regions. The contributors to this volume advance the discussion to a new stage, critically scrutinizing alarmist claims of the first wave of research, probing the historical antecedents of today’s land grabbing, examining large-scale land acquisitions in light of international human rights and investment law, and considering anew longstanding questions in agrarian political economy about forms of dispossession and accumulation and grassroots resistance. Readers of this collection will learn about the impacts of land and water grabbing; the relevance of key theorists, including Marx, Polanyi and Harvey; the realities of China’s involvement in Africa; how contemporary land grabbing differs from earlier plantation agriculture; and how social movements—and rural people in general—are responding to this new threat. This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

The sign that ‘Africa is on Sale’ has been appearing with regular frequency in major newspaper accounts across the world, indicating that large amounts/expanses of Africa’s rich farmlands are being sold to transnational investors, usually on long-term leases, at a rate not seen in decades – indeed not since the colonial period. Transnational and national economic actors from various business sectors (oil and auto, mining and forestry, food and chemical, bioenergy, etc.) are eagerly acquiring, or declaring their intention to acquire large areas of land on which to build, maintain or extend large-scale extractive and agro-industrial enterprises to help secure their own food and energy needs into the future. This book provides a critical appraisal of the growing phenomenon of land grabbing in Africa. Far from being a technical issue associated "good governance", the problem of land grabbing by transnational corporation and states is a serious threat for the food security of millions of Africans and is undoubtedly one of the great challenges of our time for development on the continent. The case studies illustrate that African states are also complicit in the massive land grabbing by actively participating in isolated development while excluding the local communities. The case studies reveal key features that characterize how the global land grab plays out in specific localities in Africa. This book was published as a special issue of African Identities.

This handbook fills a large gap in the current knowledge about the critical role of Africa in the changing global order. By connecting the past, present, and future in a continuum that shows the paradox of existence for over one billion people, the book underlines the centrality of the African continent to global knowledge production, the global economy, global security, and global creativity. Bringing together perspectives from top Africa scholars, it actively dispels myths of the continent as just a passive recipient of external influences, presenting instead an image of an active global agent that astutely projects soft power. Unlike previous handbooks, this book offers an eclectic mix of historical, contemporary, and interdisciplinary approaches that allow for a more holistic view of the many aspects of Africa’s relations with the world.

The Routledge Handbook of Natural Resource Governance in Africa provides a comprehensive analysis of African natural resource governance, stretching across the continent, and encompassing water, land, extractive resources, and mining. Africa’s natural resources are not only crucial for the continent from an economic, environmental, and political perspective, but they are also of significant geopolitical importance, with direct implication for meeting the global challenges outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. Whether an abundance of natural resources proves to be a curse or a blessing depends on the nature, extent, and outcome of the effort and experience of an individual country in governing and managing such assets. It is with this in mind that this ground-breaking handbook brings together experts from across the field of natural resource development to reflect on the varied regime types and paradigms within the continent’s natural resource sectors, the specific challenges they face, and their role within global value chains. The book first considers governance for sustainable development and discourses of land and development financing, before going on to investigate the regulatory and policy impacts, and socioeconomic implications of natural resource management. Finally, the Handbook situates the African continent within the emerging global energy transition; examining trends in South-South cooperation, and new frontiers for the harnessing of critical tools in a sustainable future for natural resource governance and management. Overall, the Handbook’s in-depth analysis provides a unique blend of realism and optimism, highlighting the importance of building a new sustainable African resource narrative for shared prosperity. The handbook will be an essential read for researchers and policy makers with an interest in sustainable development and natural resource governance in Africa.

This book pursues a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach in order to analyze the relationship between water and food security. It demonstrates that most of the world’s economies lack sufficient water resources to secure their populations’ food requirements and are thus virtual importers of water. One of the most inspiring cases, which this book is rooted in, is Italy: the third largest net virtual water importer on earth. The book also shows that the sustainability of water depends on the extent to which societies recognize and take into account its value and contribution to agricultural production. Due to the large volumes of water required for food production, water and food security are in fact inextricably linked. Contributions from leading international experts and scholars in the field use the concepts of virtual water and water footprints to explain this relationship, with an eye to the empirical examples of wine, tomato and pasta production in Italy. This book provides a valuable resource for all researchers, professionals, policymakers and everyone else interested in water and food security.