Foreign Investment

Whereas Donald Trump hailed the “peace” agreement between Rwanda and DRC as marking the end of a deadly three-decade war, a new report from the Oakland Institute, Shafted: The Scramble for Critical Minerals in the DRC, exposes it as the latest US maneuver to control Congolese critical minerals.

Green Colonialism 2.0: Tree Plantations and Carbon Offsets in Africa examines the African Forestry Impact Platform (AFIP) bankrolled by European development finance institutions, Japanese oil interests, and an Australian investment firm. The AFIP exemplifies the green colonialism that President Ruto of Kenya is promoting on the continent — opening the door for more extraction of Africa's resources. Despite AFIP’s claim of promoting “nature-based solutions,” a troubling pattern of exploitation and greenwashing underscores its investments, stakeholders, and financial backers.

The report from the Oakland Institute exposes the financial interests and the dynamics at play in Ukraine leading to further concentration of land and finance.

As the escalating climate crisis threatens access to water for millions across Africa, Drying Out African Lands: Expansion of Large-Scale Agriculture Threatens Access to Water in Africa unveils the devastating impact of large-scale agricultural plantations on the right to water on the continent. Since the 2007-2008 food crisis, Africa has been the primary destination of private international investors for large-scale agriculture schemes. Governments justify granting access to land and water to investors to meet the needs of development and food security.

As community efforts to reclaim 100,000 hectares of their ancestral land occupied by oil palm plantations are met with violent repression, unlawful arrests, and murder, Meet the Investors Behind the PHC Oil Palm Plantations in DRC exposes the financiers profiteering from the plantations. Communities in Lokutu, Yaligimba, and Boteka in DRC, forcibly displaced first in 1911 by the Belgian colonial authorities to establish oil palm plantations, face acute hardships today.

As community efforts to reclaim 100,000 hectares of their ancestral land, initially seized over a century ago for oil palm plantations, are met with violent repression, unlawful arrests, and murder, In King Leopold's Steps: The Investors Bankrolling the PHC Oil Palm Plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo unveils the names of the investors financing the plantations in the DRC.

This Is Our Land: Why Reject the Privatization of Customary Land, is an educational resource that debunks myths used for privatizing land around the world, while providing facts on how customary tenure systems are critical to protecting livelihoods and ensuring sustainable development for the people and the planet. The privatization of land consistently serves the interests of private investors and multinational corporations at the expense of billions of livelihoods and the environment.

From Extraction to Inclusion, analyses Papua New Guinea's economic and development performance since its independence in 1975. While the economy has relied on the large-scale extraction of abundant minerals and other natural resources, on most indicators PNG is faring worse than its Pacific neighbors and any progress that has been achieved does not reflect the huge value of the resources extracted.

Driving Dispossession: The Global Push to “Unlock the Economic Potential of Land,” sounds the alarm on the unprecedented wave of privatization of natural resources that is underway around the world. Through six case studies — Ukraine, Zambia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Brazil — the report details the myriad ways by which governments — willingly or under the pressure of financial institutions and Western donor agencies — are putting more land into so-called “productive use” in the name of development.