Tom Lavers

‘Land grab’ as development strategy? The political economy of agricultural investment in Ethiopia

This paper examines the domestic political economy of so-called ‘land-grabbing’ in Ethiopia, assessing the motivations of the Ethiopian government, which has strongly promoted foreign agricultural investment. The paper draws on a unique set of federal and regional databases detailing foreign and domestic investments in Ethiopia to analyse the likely role investment will play in the Ethiopian economy and the areas which have been targeted for investment. The analysis identifies increased foreign exchange earnings as the main likely contribution of investment but in doing so highlights concerns for food security in Ethiopia, as the goal of national self-sufficiency has given way to a risky trade-based food security strategy. The paper also argues that the federal governments attempts to direct investment to sparsely-populated lowlands have important implications for the ethnic self-determination that is a key tenet of Ethiopias federal system.

Patterns of agrarian transformation in Ethiopia: State-mediated commercialisation and the ‘land grab’

Much of the literature on the ‘land grab’ has thus far focused on the international drivers of foreign agricultural investment, with far less attention paid to the roles of developing country states and domestic political economy in changing forms of agrarian production. This paper analyses how global and domestic processes combine to produce patterns of agrarian transformation in Ethiopia, one of the main targets of foreign agricultural investment. The paper presents a typology of changes in land use and examines in detail three case studies of investments in Ethiopia drawn from this typology. The paper concludes that the most dramatic changes are taking place in lowland, peripheral regions where large-scale, capital-intensive farms employing wage labour pose a serious risk to pastoralists whose ‘use’ of land is contested by the state. Although the government has been careful to avoid mass displacement of settled smallholders, there are also important changes taking place in highland areas, with the government encouraging investments that combine the resources of investors with the labour and land of smallholders. These investments have resulted in exposure to new forms of market risk.

Food security and social protection in highland Ethiopia: linking the Productive Safety Net to the land question

While much recent research has focused on the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), this is by no means the only social protection policy in rural Ethiopia. Drawing on a very different rationale to the PSNP, the Ethiopian government also justifies state land ownership as a form of social protection for smallholders. This paper examines the links between these policies through a case study of an extremely food-insecure site. The paper concludes that while the PSNP and land policy together provide minimal security for landholders, land shortages and the problematic nature of agricultural production are such that there is little chance that the PSNP and its complementary programmes can achieve food security. As a result, the PSNP is used to support failing agricultural policies, limiting urban migration in the interests of political stability. These findings highlight the importance of situating safety net programmes within the socioeconomic context which generates insecurity.

Investigating the Political Economy of Social Protection Expansion in Africa: At the Intersection of Transnational Ideas and Domestic Politics

The growing literature on social protection in Africa has tended to focus on conceptual debates, policy design issues and impact evaluations. To date, there has been relatively little systematic analysis of the ways in which politics and political economy shape policy. This paper outlines a conceptual and methodological framework for investigating the politics of social protection, with a particular focus on explaining the variation in progress made by African countries in adopting and implementing social protection programmes. We propose that an adapted ‘political settlements’ framework that incorporates insights from the literatures on the politics of welfare state development and discursive institutionalism can help frame elite commitment to social protection as an outcome of the interaction of domestic political economy and transnational ideas. This approach has the advantage of situating social protection within a broader policy context, as well as highlighting the influence of underlying power relations in society. Finally, the paper suggests a research methodology that can be employed to operationalise this approach, with a particular focus on process tracing and comparative case study research.

Poverty Reduction and the Politics of Bilateral Donor Assistance

The last 15 years have seen a reorientation of the international development industry, resulting in a change from economic growth as the principal objective of development towards a focus on poverty reduction, as embodied by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). At the same time, recognition of the failings of the policy conditionality associated with structural adjustment has seen donors place an increased emphasis on “national ownership” of policies by developing countries as a key determinant of development success. This chapter assesses the implications of these changes by analysing the role now played by donors in policy-making processes in recipient countries, the mechanisms through which they exert influence and changes in the sectoral allocation of development aid. The analysis draws on statistical data on aid allocations as well as examining the politics of bilateral donor assistance in two illustrative case studies.