Land politics in a votile world
Okonjo-Iweala, N.
Agriculture and food are firmly back on the agenda for development agencies - and increasingly also the private sector. But to maximize investment in the sector and ensure that it yields benefits for local people, attention to land tenure is critical. The commodity price shock of 2008 demonstrated that rising prices for basic food can take a terrible toll on the worldds poor who, unless they are able to produce their own food, bear the brunt of such price hikes. This year we have had another price spike. According to our estimates, rising food prices pushed about 44 million people into poverty since last June. A 10 percent increase in food prices could drive an additional 10 million people into poverty. Preventing similar crises in the future will require work on several fronts. Increasing farmerss tenure security, ensuring that they can transfer land to better users and join the non-farm economy in the context of structural change, and possibly allow them to use it to access credit is one of them. And there is plenty of work to be done.
Event: Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2011
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