2063Now

Land Grabbing in Africa: Sovereignty, Food Security, and Climate Resilience

2063Now | May 2026

Geopolitical instability has brought discussions about sovereignty, strategic autonomy, and resilience in the face of external shocks—whether economic, health-related, political, or climate-related—back to the forefront. The issue of land ownership, particularly of arable land, is intrinsically linked to these challenges. For the past 25 years, Africa has been the continent that has ceded the most hectares to private entities or foreign governments. This trend is accelerating due to the economic and food security strategies of many countries, land speculation, and the growth of carbon credits, and does not appear to fully account for the potentially disastrous long-term consequences regarding food sovereignty and meeting the needs of domestic markets. This is occurring in a context where African food systems are already fragile, dependent on numerous imports, and highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

In this article, 2063Now examines land grabbing in Africa—a region at the center of international interest—as well as the challenges it poses, the solutions available to governments, and the ways in which local communities are resisting.

New Land Grabs: Food Security, Carbon Markets, and Speculation

The volatility of commodity and food prices since the late 2000s, coupled with growing global food demand, has created pressure for land acquisition in emerging economies, particularly in Africa, which is home to 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land [1]. Added to this has been the development of carbon offset projects and the emergence of new nature-based asset classes, particularly forests, driven by multinationals and asset managers from “developed countries.”

Furthermore, in a global geopolitical context marked by uncertainty and exposed to a wide range of risks (climate-related, geopolitical, and health-related), governments have made economic resilience—particularly food resilience—a key focus of their foreign policies and international partnerships in order to address limited local production capacity (available arable land, water stress), as well as growing demand driven by population and economic growth.

While China and its companies are often associated with land grabbing (as the world’s leading buyer) as part of the New Silk Road strategy, the “Middle Kingdom” is far from being the only active player in Africa. In fact, the United States, European countries—through numerous private entities and companies based in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and France—as well as certain Asian countries, including India, play a leading role in land purchases in Africa [2].

More recently, Gulf countries that are highly dependent on food imports—such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—have stepped up their investments in Africa’s agricultural sector and infrastructure in order to mitigate the effects of their arid climate, lack of arable land, and limited freshwater resources [3].

Regardless of the entities’ countries of origin, transactions are primarily carried out by private companies, sovereign wealth funds, offshore entities, or multinational corporations, but they are often opaque and difficult to trace. Since 2012, the International Land Coalition (ILC) research collective has implemented the Land Matrix Initiative database to promote the tracking and transparency of transactions for civil society organizations [4].

Among the countries most affected by the transfer or leasing of land to foreign parties since 2000 are South Sudan (nearly 2 million hectares transferred or leased), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1.4 million hectares), Gabon (1.1 million hectares), Mozambique (1.1 million hectares), and Ethiopia (more than 800,000 hectares) [5].

Land grabbing: a threat to food sovereignty and climate resilience

The largely unregulated transfer of land on the African continent to foreign parties represents an unprecedented loss of sovereignty since the end of colonialism. It marks a break with the traditional concepts of land ownership held by many African nations and civilizations, for whom, historically, land is not for sale—and certainly not to foreign interests.

In addition to the issue of sovereignty, land grabbing is a major factor contributing to food insecurity. Despite significant arable land potential and an agricultural sector that accounts for more than one-third of the continent’s GDP and 70% of employment, Africa is a net importer of food, with an average food import bill of $15 billion in 2023 [6]. Due to low agricultural yields, limited access to irrigation, and insufficiently structured value chains—particularly in food preservation and fertilizers—more than 20% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is at risk of famine or facing the threat of famine [7].

These structural vulnerabilities are exposed to the consequences of climate change and the continent’s population growth. These two phenomena will increase pressure on African countries’ food systems, with higher demand and ecosystems threatened by water stress, wildfires, and slower soil regeneration. Furthermore, land grabbing often contributes to the development of intensive monocultures (grains, biofuels) intended for export. These trade-offs, in a context of limited land, do not help bridge the gap between population demand and food production.

Finally, agriculture in Africa is predominantly small-scale and family-based, carried out on land passed down from generation to generation. Land transactions sometimes contribute to the dispossession of indigenous communities, who are often disadvantaged in favor of financial interests and in defiance of customary and community law—which struggles to protect them when governments fail to address these issues.

What solutions are there to curb the abuses of land grabbing?

In light of the many challenges mentioned above, it is primarily up to governments to address this issue in order to protect national sovereignty and the rights of their people. It appears necessary to organize cross-party forums with civil society to define a land strategy for the coming century, to establish a constitutional framework for any transfer of land to foreign parties, and to create safeguards to ensure the proper enforcement of laws on the ground.

Strengthening the integration of customary law into national and civil law is essential to protect rural communities and indigenous peoples. On this basis, states must accelerate the issuance and formalization of land titles in rural areas and establish digital land registries to promote transparency.

Civil society and non-governmental organizations must also continue to fight to uphold their rights and demand transparency from their governments. In the Republic of the Congo, citizen mobilization succeeded in forcing the government to back down from a plan to transfer land to Rwanda, which was approved in 2022 in the departments of Pool, Bouenza, and Niari [8]. The proliferation of public African databases, such as the Land Matrix Initiative, is essential to help communities, NGOs, and international partners stay informed on this critical issue. Similarly, new forms of organizing and monitoring land rights may emerge from civil society at the local and national levels, building, for example, on existing initiatives such as the United Nations framework for assessing the continuity of land rights [9].

Beyond the issue of land grabbing lies the question of value creation for Africa’s agricultural sector. In a future article, we will examine how to leverage Africa’s arable land to create value and jobs, improve people’s well-being, and protect the environment and local communities.

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