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Millions forced to choose between hunger or Covid-19

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5 years ago

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On the eve of May Day 2020, in full coronavirus pandemic, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) released some hair raising statistics. About 1.6 billion workers from the informal sector are in dire straits because of the lockdowns governments have imposed to stop the spread of the virus. According to the ILO, some 60% of the world’s workers are in the informal economy, working without contracts, safety nets or savings.1 Depending on the country, women represent a higher or lower share of the informal workforce, but either way they are paid less than men.2
Now, because of quarantines and confinement, stoppages and curfews, there is no work. No work means no income. No income, no food. Without alternative income sources, the ILO warned, “these workers and their families will have no means to survive”.3
If workers in the informal sector are not able to feed themselves, they are also unable to continue feeding millions, if not billions more. Informal labour is what keeps food systems functioning in most of the world: it accounts for 94% of on-farm labour globally, and a big part of the workforce in food trade, retail, preparation and delivery in many parts of the world.4
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare our dependence not only on well functioning health and food systems, but the gross injustices inflicted on those working in these essential sectors in the “best” of times: low wages, no access to health care, no child care, no safety protection at work, often no legal status and no representation in negotiating work conditions. This is true in both the informal and the formal sectors of the global food system. Indeed, the contrast between the wealth at the top of the largest food companies and the plight of their frontline workers is extreme. Nestlé, for instance, the world’s number one food company, awarded its shareholders US$8 billion in dividends at the end of April 2020, an amount that surpasses the annual budget of the UN World Food Programme (WFP).5
The only question that matters now is how to ensure everyone has access to food while keeping people safe and healthy at every step from farm to consumer. Unfortunately, this has not been the priority that has shaped food systems over the past decades. But getting there is not as complicated as it may appear.
Shutdown leading to hunger
The shutdown of much of the world economy since March 2020 has meant that many people are confined to their homes or their communities and cannot work. Factories have stopped, construction projects halted, eateries and transportation closed, offices shut. In many countries, migrant workers and students immediately tried to go home, where they have family to lean on, but many got blocked for lack of transport or border closures.
These measures seem to have been implemented without much thought about the actual workings of food systems. Farmers have been mostly able (not always) to continue working on their farms, but they lack labour – precisely when it’s harvest or birthing time in many parts of the world – and the means to move produce and livestock off the farm to cooperatives, collection points, slaughterhouses, traders or markets. Closures of schools, offices and restaurants have choked the system, leading to enormous waste. As a consequence, milk is being dumped, animals are being euthanised and crops are being ploughed into the soil. Similarly, fisherfolk who fish at night in place likes Uganda have been grounded because of curfews.6
In the cities, violence, abuse and corruption have accompanied these shutdowns in incomprehensible ways. In East Africa, as in parts of Asia, street vendors caught out in the streets have been met with whips and rubber bullets.7 Riots have arisen in urban and peri-urban communities when scarce food aid arrived.8 In Lebanon, one person was even killed in such riots.9 And in eSwatini, formerly Swaziland, the government has simply decided that it will not feed the cities, only focus on the rural areas.10
Meanwhile food companies have been granted lockdown exemptions that have greatly exacerbated the health crisis, without necessarily keeping people fed. Some of the world’s worst outbreaks of Covid-19 have been at meat processing plants owned by multinational corporations in Brazil, Canada, Spain, Germany and the US. Although these plants mostly produce meat for export, they were deemed an “essential service” and allowed to operate at full capacity, knowingly putting their workers and the surrounding communities at grave risk of infection.11 In the US, as of 6 May 2020, 12,000 meat plant workers have fallen ill and 48 have died.12 Seafood processing plants are hotspots too, such as in Ghana, where an outbreak at a tuna canning plant owned by Thai Union is responsible for 11% of the Covid-19 cases in the entire country.13 Supermarket workers and ecommerce platform employees have also been facing the huge difficulty of staying safe while keeping open for the purpose of rendering so-called “essential services”, exempt from the lockdowns. Oil palm plantations have mostly kept operational — to serve the production of much-needed soaps to fight the pandemic, their owners claim – but some have defied local ordinances or not provided the necessary protections for workers.14
The cure is at risk of becoming worse than the disease. People who have no work or wages since the pandemic broke – most of the informal sector, but also workers from the formal sector – are now facing the growing reality of hunger. The WFP says that the risk is highest right now in about ten countries, most of them engulfed in armed conflict, such as Somalia or South Sudan. But the lack of access to food due to Covid-19 work closures, and the resulting global recession that we are told will last for months, is now threatening many other countries. In India, 50% of rural people are eating less due to the lockdown.15 Worldwide, the number of people suffering acute hunger could double from 135 million today to 265 million by the end of the year, WFP says.16
Already, those hardest hit have been feeling the pain. The saying “I would rather die of coronavirus than hunger” is commonly heard in Haiti, Angola, Lebanon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mayotte, India and Latin America, according to news reports.17 In Belgium, it’s “Either we die of hunger or of coronavirus. We have to choose.”18 In West Africa, the saying is “Hunger will kill us before corona does”.
What’s clear is that if this spreading hunger does reach the scale of a global crisis, it will not be for lack of production or even because of hoarding. There is plenty of supply. It’s the distribution system that has shown its incapacity to feed us safely – especially the highly concentrated and globalised part that cannot respond to the crisis.
Creative community responses
One of the first measures many authorities took to halt the spread of coronavirus was to shut down restaurants, cafés, food stalls and fresh markets. As a response, communities have devised many other ways to get food to where it is needed, often using social media. On Facebook and Whatsapp, groups have been formed to collectively identify where food stocks are located or to collectively procure produce from farmers. Shuttered restaurants and cantines are using their resources to access and repackage bulk food supplies like flour or grains, repackage them and sell them in small quantities. “Repurposing” has become the word of the day, as communities come together, or take form, to find and move food through creative means.
Farmers have also devised innovative ways to sell and move their produce. In Europe, they have started home sales, deliveries to hospitals and online sales, in addition to connecting with consumers directly through community-supported agriculture schemes and farmers’ markets.19 In Asia, farmers have been going online through social media or ecommerce tools to organise alternative markets.20 For example in Karnataka, India, farmers have started using Twitter to post videos of their produce and connect with buyers. Others are resuscitating traditional systems of bartering, to overcome their lack of cash and match supply with demand.21 In Indonesia, a union of fisherfolk in Indramayu, West Java, has started an initiative to barter with local farmers’ groups through a collective action called “fisherfolks’ food barn”. As restaurants and markets have shut down, the fisherfolk have no buyers. So they exchange fish for rice and vegetables with farmers. This is providing food and livelihood security to the different communities.22
In Latin America, rural communities are the ones least affected by the virus. Many of them are organising to give away food to the poor in the cities. In Cauca, Colombia, the Nasa people – who consider themselves longterm survivors of viruses, wars and the incursion of agribusiness – have collectively organised a “food march” and brought supplies from their harvest to impoverished neighbourhoods in the cities, defying the lockdown.23 In Brazil, without any state support, the Landless Workers Movement has donated 600 tonnes of healthy food to hospitals, homeless people and other vulnerable communities in 24 states across the country.24 Members are also converting urban cafés into soup kitchens and educational facilities into makeshift hospitals, where allied healthcare workers are rendering their services.25
In Zimbabwe, the lockdown has crippled the movement of agriculture produce off of large farms across the country. Small farmers, will limited support, are hustling to fill the gap, finding new ways to get vegetables and other supplies to markets. Peasant movement organisers say this shift in the food matrix shows that the country’s 1.5 million small holders are capable of feeding the nation.26
Local governments, private citizens and companies have also been doing their share. In Vietnam, public dispensers called “rice ATMs” have been invented to allow families to access a free daily ration of rice without physical contact or hoarding.27 In India, the state of Kerala has launched a campaign called “Subhiksha Keralam” aimed at achieving self sufficiency in food production through subsidies, infrastructure and other support mechanisms.28 In Thailand, mobile vegetable shops have been revived under the quarantine with support from Bangkok’s local authorities. The city wholesale market is providing small producers and traders hundreds of trucks to allow them to shift to door-to-door deliveries.29 And in many parts of Africa, motorbike delivery services are adjusting their practices to help get food supplies to people who need them.30
Whether it’s through solidarity, mutual aid, volunteer work or cooperatives, and whether it’s formal or informal, this surge in community-oriented efforts to get food to where it’s needed is crucial and needs resourcing, urgently. While grassroots initiatives are not “the” solution, they certainly point in the right direction.
Shift to community-based food systems
To prevent the disaster that both ILO and WFP are warning us about, we would call for three kinds of measures.
Immediate:
1) Resource community initiatives: As a matter of urgency, we need massive recognition of and support to community efforts to feed those in need. Funds, tools and other resources should be allocated to these efforts. This can mean funding or materials for neighbourhood groups or indigenous communities who need personal protective equipment, rooms or spaces in which to organise and transport food pantries. It can mean resources for regional and local governments to do the work together with community-based organisations, cooperatives and farmers. And it should mean support from local governments themselves, whether through policy measures or infrastructure. Many are already doing this, but it needs scaling up, massively and quickly. While the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other donors help governments face health crisis funding needs, most of it is going to big business. It would be better to allocate more to local governments so they can support community efforts.
Longer term:
2) Improve conditions for farmers and workers: We need to uplift the position of food system workers, from production or procurement all the way to retail, delivery and food service. This means things like: higher wages or a universal basic income that will pay low-income workers much better or reach people outside the wage economy; a seat at the table to redefine work and renegotiate work processes, as many unions are clamouring for; full rights to health care, hazard pay, safe working conditions and child care; and, perhaps most importantly, a better status in society. Farmers must also be supported with safe systems to get produce to markets and fair prices that provide for their livelihoods. At the same time, farm labourers must receive decent wages and healthy work conditions. The Covid-19 crisis has made it clear how important farm work, transportation, food distribution and delivery are to our well being. People working in the system are frontliners as much as the health care workers. They deserve a better place, better pay and a fairer distribution of benefits – and now is the time to make that structural change.
3) Rebuild public food systems: We need to reinvent and reinforce public, community-controlled markets in the food sphere, from the local level up. And we need to connect these markets to the produce of small scale farmers and fishers. The coronavirus lockdown has shown us, quite starkly, how we cannot rely on global trade as a strategy and how corporate sector control over key segments of our food supply makes survival precarious. We need to put an end to public funds going to large food or agribusiness corporations, except as support for workers. We also need to address concentration in the food industry through measures like anti-trust or anti-factory farm legislation, and direct support towards small scale fisheries, abattoirs, dairies and wholesale markets. We know that more pandemics will come. Now is the chance to move forward and consolidate a public orientation to our food systems, somewhat like in the health sector where we have public medical research, public hospitals and generic medicines outside the grip of patent laws that serve corporate greed. Food is not merely a public good; it’s a social good and needs to be guaranteed, protected and provided to all like healthcare.
If one thing positive comes from this crisis, it could be that we regain and reassert public systems in our countries, after decades of privatisation and encroaching corporate control. These systems should support and build on solutions that local communities are already providing. Food, like health, is a crucial place to start.
___________________
1 Domestic workers who are contracted and farmers or vendors who have registered businesses are not part of the informal economy definition.
2 ILO, “Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture”, 2018, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_626831.pdf, page 21.
3 ILO, “As job losses escalate, nearly half of global workforce at risk of losing livelihoods”, 29 April 2020, https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_743036/lang–en/index.htm
4 ILO, “Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture”, 2018, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_626831.pdf, page 21.
5 Nestlé, “Results of the 153rd Annual General Meeting of Nestlé S.A. held on April 23, 2020”, https://www.nestle.com/sites/default/files/2020-04/annual-general-meeting-2020-summary-minutes-en.pdf. In 2018, the WFP raised US$7.2 billion, see: https://www.wfp.org/overview
6 International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, “COVID-19 and the crisis in food systems”, April 2020, http://www.ipes-food.org/pages/covid19
7 Alex Esagala et al, “Canes, tears in Kampala over coronavirus”, Daily Monitor, 26 March 2020, https://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Photos-that-will-compel-you-cancel-your-journey-Kampala/688334-5505362-g3u0ib/index.html and Boitumelo Metsing, “Food parcel protest turns ugly as cops fire rubber bullets at hungry residents”, The Star, 29 Apr 2020, https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/sport/food-parcel-protest-turns-ugly-as-cops-fire-rubber-bullets-at-hungry-residents-47325962
8 Tom Odula and Idi Ali Juma, “Stampede in Kenya as slum residents surge for food aid”, Associated Press, 10 April 2020 https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/stampede-in-kenya-as-slum-residents-surge-for-food-aid
9 Jean Shaoul, “Protester killed in Lebanon during riots against soaring food prices”, World Socialist Website, 29 April 2020, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/29/leba-a29.html
10 ”Swaziland govt. confirms it will not feed the starving in towns and cities during coronavirus lockdown”, Swazi Media Commentary, 29 April 2020, https://allafrica.com/stories/202004290702.html
11 United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, “UFCW calls on USDA and White House to protect meatpacking workers and America’s food supply”, 30 April 2020, http://www.ufcw.org/2020/04/30/covidpacking/. While European meat packers are also experiencing outbreaks, they have not been as deep and widespread as in the US where corporate concentration is higher, says IPES (op cit).
12 Leah Douglas, “Mapping Covid-19 in meat and food processing plants”, Food and Environment Reporting Network, 22 April 2020, https://thefern.org/2020/04/mapping-covid-19-in-meat-and-food-processing-plants/
13 Rachel Sapin and Drew Cherry, “Thai Union plant is source of coronavirus outbreak that sickened over 500, officials say”, IntraFish, 12 May 2020, https://www.intrafish.com/processing/thai-union-plant-is-source-of-coronavirus-outbreak-that-sickened-over-500-officials-say/2-1-807547
14 ARD, Green Advocates, JUSTICITIZ, MALOA, NMJD, RADD, Synaparcam and YVE, “We demand justice and safety for workers on Socfin’s rubber/oil palm plantations during the Covid-19 pandemic”, Open letter to Socfin, 29 April 2020, https://farmlandgrab.org/29602
15 “Coronavirus impact | Half of rural India is eating less due to COVID-19 lockdown: Survey”, Monetcontrol, 13 May 2020, https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/covid-19-impact-half-of-rural-population-eating-less-amid-coronavirus-crisis-5259491.html
16 Paul Anthem, “Risk of hunger pandemic as COVID-19 set to almost double acute hunger by end of 2020”, WFP, 16 April 2020, https://insight.wfp.org/covid-19-will-almost-double-people-in-acute-hunger-by-end-of-2020-59df0c4a8072
17 Bello, “Choosing between livelihoods and lives in Latin America”, The Economist, 2 May 2020, https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/05/02/choosing-between-livelihoods-and-lives-in-latin-america; “Lebanon: A New Surge in the Popular Struggle”, International Socialist League, May 4, 2020, http://lis-isl.org/en/2020/05/04/libano-un-nuevo-salto-en-la-rebelion-popular/; La Rédaction, « Ici, on a plus peur de mourir de faim que du coronavirus ! », Charlie Hebdo, 6 avril 2020, https://charliehebdo.fr/2020/04/courrier/courrier-des-lecteurs-mayotte-on-a-plus-peur-de-mourir-de-faim-que-du-coronavirus/; AFP, “Dans l’Inde confinée, les pauvres luttent pour survivre”, 9 avril 2020, https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/04/09/dans-linde-confinee-les-pauvres-luttent-pour-survivre; AFP, “Haïti: mourir de faim aujourd’hui ou du coronavirus demain”, 3 May 2020, https://www.la-croix.com/Monde/Haiti-mourir-faim-aujourd-hui-coronavirus-demain-2020-05-03-1301092306; AFP, “«Mieux vaut mourir de cette maladie que mourir de faim»: les Angolais bravent le verrouillage du virus”, 6 Avril 2020, https://www.fr24news.com/fr/a/2020/04/mieux-vaut-mourir-de-cette-maladie-que-mourir-de-faim-les-angolais-bravent-le-verrouillage-du-virus.html.
18 Annick Ovine, “’Nous, on doit choisir: mourir de faim ou crever du coronavirus’”, La Libre, 16 March 2020, https://www.lalibre.be/belgique/societe/nous-on-doit-choisir-mourir-de-faim-ou-crever-du-coronavirus-5e6f91fc9978e201d8bcf20c
19 European Coordination Via Campesina, “ECVC survey on the impact of Covid-19 on peasant farming”, April 2020, https://www.eurovia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ECVC-SURVEY-ON-THE-IMPACT-OF-COVID-19-ON-PEASANT-FARMING.pdf
20 Zhenzhong Si, “Commentary: How China ensured no one went hungry during coronavirus lockdown”, Channel News Asia, 19 April 2020, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/coronavirus-covid-19-china-grocery-food-security-price-delivery-12640426
21 Shahroz Afridi, “Madhya Pradesh: Left without cash, lockdown forces villagers to adopt barter system”, Free Press Journal, 22 April 2020, https://www.freepressjournal.in/bhopal/madhya-pradesh-left-without-cash-lockdown-forces-villagers-to-adopt-barter-system
22 Pandangan Jogja, “Barter Ikan Nelayan dengan Beras Petani, Cara Nelayan Bertahan di Tengah Pandemi”, Kumparan, 11 Mei 2020, https://kumparan.com/pandangan-jogja/barter-ikan-nelayan-dengan-beras-petani-cara-nelayan-bertahan-di-tengah-pandemi-1tOVhGXPMQr
23 Rita Valencia, “Los nasa de Colombia dicen: Porque no seremos los mismos, hay que liberar”, Ojarasca, 9 May 2020, https://ojarasca.jornada.com.mx/2020/05/09/nasa-de-colombia-porque-no-seremos-los-mismos-hay-que-liberar-1000.html
24 MST, “Produzir alimentos saudáveis e plantar árvores: a Reforma Agrária Popular no combate ao Coronavírus”, 29 de março de 2020, https://mst.org.br/2020/03/29/produzir-alimentos-saudaveis-e-plantar-arvores-a-reforma-agraria-popular-no-combate-ao-coronavirus/
25 Rebecca Tarlau, “Activist farmers in Brazil feed the hungry and aid the sick as president downplays coronavirus crisis”, The Conversation, 5 May 2020, https://theconversation.com/activist-farmers-in-brazil-feed-the-hungry-and-aid-the-sick-as-president-downplays-coronavirus-crisis-136914
26 Ignatius Banda, “COVID-19: Zimbabwe’s smallholder farmers step into the food supply gap”, IPS, 12 May 2020, http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/05/covid-19-zimbabwes-smallholder-farmers-step-food-supply-gap/
27 ”Vietnam entrepreneur sets up free ‘rice ATM’ to feed the poor amid coronavirus lockdown”, 16 April 2020, https://youtu.be/lWLuIO1DGAA
28 Samuel Philip Matthew, “COVID-19 in Kerala: Staying ahead of the curve”, Newsclick, 9 May 2020, https://www.newsclick.in/COVID-19-Kerala-Highest-Recovery-Rate-Pandemic
29 Juarawee Kittisilpa, “Thai grocery trucks get new life from coronavirus shutdown”, Reuters, 14 April 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-thailand-grocery-t/thai-grocery-trucks-get-new-life-from-coronavirus-shutdown-idUSKCN21W0O4?il=0
30 AFP, “African e-commerce firms get coronavirus boost”, 15 May 2020, https://news.yahoo.com/african-e-commerce-firms-coronavirus-boost-033743948.html

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NGO WORK

Climate wash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

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3 hours ago

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November 13, 2025

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Climate wash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights reveals how the Bank is appropriating climate commitments made at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to justify its multibillion-dollar initiative to “formalize” land tenure across the Global South. While the Bank claims that it is necessary “to access land for climate action,” Climatewash uncovers that its true aim is to open lands to agribusiness, mining of “transition minerals,” and false solutions like carbon credits – fueling dispossession and environmental destruction. Alongside plans to spend US$10 billion on land programs, the World Bank has also pledged to double its agribusiness investments to US$9 billion annually by 2030.

This report details how the Bank’s land programs and policy prescriptions to governments dismantle collective land tenure systems and promote individual titling and land markets as the norm, paving the way for private investment and corporate takeover. These reforms, often financed through loans taken by governments, force countries into debt while pushing a “structural transformation” that displaces smallholder farmers, undermines food sovereignty, and prioritizes industrial agriculture and extractive industries.

Drawing on a thorough analysis of World Bank programs from around the world, including case studies from Indonesia, Malawi, Madagascar, the Philippines, and Argentina, Climatewash documents how the Bank’s interventions are already displacing communities and entrenching land inequality. The report debunks the Bank’s climate action rhetoric. It details how the Bank’s efforts to consolidate land for industrial agriculture, mining, and carbon offsetting directly contradict the recommendations of the IPCC, which emphasizes the protection of lands from conversion and overexploitation and promotes practices such as agroecology as crucial climate solutions.

Read full report: Climatewash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Source: The Oakland Institute

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NGO WORK

Africa’s Land Is Not Empty: New Report Debunks the Myth of “Unused Land” and Calls for a Just Future for the Continent’s Farmland

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3 hours ago

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November 13, 2025

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A new report challenges one of the most persistent and harmful myths shaping Africa’s development agenda — the idea that the continent holds vast expanses of “unused” or “underutilised” land waiting to be transformed into industrial farms or carbon markets.

Titled Land Availability and Land-Use Changes in Africa (2025), the study exposes how this colonial-era narrative continues to justify large-scale land acquisitions, displacements, and ecological destruction in the name of progress.

Drawing on extensive literature reviews, satellite data, and interviews with farmers in Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, the report systematically dismantles five false assumptions that underpin the “land abundance” narrative:

  1. That Africa has vast quantities of unused arable land available for cultivation

  2. That modern technology can solve Africa’s food crisis

  3. That smallholder farmers are unproductive and incapable of feeding the continent

  4. That markets and higher yields automatically improve food access and nutrition

  5. That industrial agriculture will generate millions of decent jobs

Each of these claims, the report finds, is deeply flawed. Much of the land labelled as “vacant” is, in reality, used for grazing, shifting cultivation, foraging, or sacred and ecological purposes. These multifunctional landscapes sustain millions of people and are far from empty.

The study also shows that Africa’s food systems are already dominated by small-scale farmers, who produce up to 80% of the continent’s food on 80% of its farmland. Rather than being inefficient, their agroecological practices are more resilient, locally adapted, and socially rooted than the industrial models promoted by external donors and corporations.

Meanwhile, the promise that industrial agriculture will lift millions out of poverty has not materialised. Mechanisation and land consolidation have displaced labour, while dependency on imported seeds and fertilisers has trapped farmers in cycles of debt and dependency.

A Continent Under Pressure

Beyond these myths, the report reveals a growing land squeeze as multiple global agendas compete for Africa’s territory: the expansion of mining for critical minerals, large-scale carbon-offset schemes, deforestation for timber and commodities, rapid urbanisation, and population growth.

Between 2010 and 2020, Africa lost more than 3.9 million hectares of forest annually — the highest deforestation rate in the world. Grasslands, vital carbon sinks and grazing ecosystems, are disappearing at similar speed.

Powerful actors — from African governments and Gulf states to Chinese investors, multinational agribusinesses, and climate-finance institutions — are driving this race for land through opaque deals that sideline local communities and ignore customary tenure rights.

A Call for a New Vision

The report calls for a radical shift away from high-tech, market-driven, land-intensive models toward people-centred, ecologically grounded alternatives. Its key policy recommendations include:

  • Promoting agroecology as a pathway for food sovereignty, ecological regeneration, and rural livelihoods.

  • Reducing pressure on land by improving agroecological productivity, cutting food waste, and prioritising equitable distribution.

  • Rejecting carbon market schemes that commodify land and displace communities.

  • Legally recognising customary land rights, particularly for women and Indigenous peoples.

  • Upholding the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) for all land-based investments.

This report makes it clear: Africa’s land is not “empty” — it is lived on, worked on, and cared for. The future of African land must not be dictated by global capital or outdated development theories, but shaped by the people who depend on it.

Download the Report

Read the full report Land Availability and Land-Use Changes in Africa (2025) to explore the evidence and policy recommendations in detail.

Source: Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)

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NGO WORK

Discover How Foreign Interests and Resource Extraction Continue to Drive Congo’s Crisis

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1 day ago

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November 12, 2025

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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.

Under the Guise of Peace

After three decades of deadly wars and atrocities, the June 2025 “peace” deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) lays bare the United States’ role in entrenching the extraction of minerals under the guise of diplomacy. For decades, US backing of Rwanda and Uganda has fueled the violence, which has ripped millions of Congolese lives apart while enabling the looting of the country’s mineral wealth. Today, Washington presents itself as a broker of peace, yet its longstanding support for Rwanda made it possible for M23 to seize territory, capture key mining sites, and forced Kinshasa to the negotiation table with hands tied behind its back. By legitimizing Rwanda’s territorial advances, the US-brokered agreement effectively rewards aggression while sidelining accountability, justice for victims, and the sovereignty of the Congolese people.

The incorporation of “formalized” mineral supply chains from eastern DRC to Rwanda exposes the pact’s true aim: Securing access to and control over minerals under the guise of diplomacy and “regional integration.” Framed as peacemaking, this is part of United States’ broader geopolitical struggle with China for control over critical resources. Far from fostering peace – over a thousand civilians have been killed since the deal was signed while parallel negotiations with Rwanda’s rebel force have collapsed – this arrangement risks deepening Congo’s subjugation. Striking deals with the Trump administration and US firms, the DRC government is surrendering to a new era of exploitation while the raging war continues, driving the unbearable suffering of the Congolese people.

Introduction

The conflict in eastern DRC, which dates back three decades to the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and subsequent Congo Wars, has claimed over six million lives, displaced millions more, and inflicted widespread suffering. Since late 2021, Rwanda and its proxy militia, M23, have stormed through mineral-rich lands and regional capitals, inflicting brutal violence and triggering mass displacement. While billions of dollars in natural resources are extracted from the area, Congolese communities toil in extreme poverty.

On June 27, 2025, a “peace” agreement was signed between Rwanda and the DRC under the auspices of the Trump administration, with diplomatic assistance from Qatar.1 The deal included pledges to respect the territorial integrity of both countries, to promote peaceful relations through the disarmament of armed groups, the return of refugees, and the creation of a joint security mechanism. A key clause commits the countries to launch a regional economic integration framework that would entail “mutually beneficial partnerships and investment opportunities,” specifically for the extraction of the DRC’s mineral wealth by US private interests.

Placing the deal in a historical perspective – after three decades of conflict and over seven decades of US chess game around Congolese minerals – this report examines its implications for the Congolese people as well as the interests involved in the plunder of the country’s resources.

The report begins by retracing 30 years of war, fueled by the looting of Congo’s mineral wealth and devastating for the people of eastern DRC. It then examines how US policy in Central Africa, from the Cold War to the present, has been shaped by its interest in Congolese minerals, sustained alliances with Rwanda and Uganda, and a consistent pattern of overlooking atrocities in support of these allies.

The report then analyses the implications of the regional economic integration aspect of the deal, which aims to link mineral supply chains in the DRC and Rwanda with US investors. The last sections examine the prospect for lasting peace and security resulting from the deal and the impact of growing involvement of US private actors in DRC and Rwanda.

Original Source: Oakland Institute

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