Global Governance Meets Local Land Tenure: International Codes of Conduct for Responsible Land Investments in Uganda

Abstract

Throughout the last decade, the international donor community has developed a plethora of regulatory initiatives for responsible agricultural investments. It remains unclear how such guidelines are invoked in practice in investment cases, and whether their use can prevent conflict and protect local land rights, as promoted. Uncovering how international guidelines work necessitates an understanding of the formal-legal setting and underlying land tenure regimes that shape investment projects. In Uganda, these contexts vary from region to region and investments take place on land held under various tenure regimes, including private, state-owned, and customary land. Based on 8 months of fieldwork in Uganda, I compare three cases of large-scale land investments in different settings and argue that variation in the underlying land tenure systems determines the variation, uneven applicability and effectiveness of global governance mechanisms.

KEYWORDS:

• Uganda
• land tenure
• land rights
• large-scale land investment
• global governance

Acknowledgements

I thank my supervisor Catherine Boone for her support, encouragement and feedback in developing this article. I am also grateful to Kathryn Hochstetler, Elliott Green, members of the LSE African Political Economy Group, and participants of the Development Studies Association Annual Conference 2020 and International Studies Association Annual Convention 2021 for their comments. I am further grateful to Kevin Rooney for help in developing the maps. I thank Arthur Owor, Rosemary Kyemba, and all my interview partners in Uganda.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This question relates to those cases of large-scale land investments where foreign investors appear to seek to comply with responsible investment practices.

2. This fieldwork was conducted with approval from the London School of Economics’ (LSE) research ethics review for dealing with human subjects and a research permit from the Ugandan National Council for Science and Technology (Registration Nr. SS4598).

3. In recent years, efforts to record customary rights and issue CCOs have been undertaken, but these are still sporadic and largely driven by donor organisations and NGOs.

4. In contrast to the Busoga Forest Company project, the Kachung Forestry Project has been subject to substantial international media coverage (i.e. Edstedt & Carton, 2018; Lyons & Ssemwogere, 2017). This may be due to fact that this investment is a fully certified international ‘carbon offset’ project, selling carbon credits to the Swedish Energy Agency, and therefore part of topical debates on the ‘financialization’ of carbon and ‘triple-win’ narratives.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Centre for Public Authority and International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science (ESRC/GCRF ES/P008038/1) and the ESRC 1+3 Doctoral Training Centre Studentship.