Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

645 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/9388

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 24

Respecting Land Rights and Averting Land Disputes
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03-01) UNCTAD; World Bank
This note provides guidance on how to ensure that agricultural investments respect existing land rights, both formal and informal, and thereby avert land disputes. Failure to respect land rights - in particular country - or region-specific land tenure systems and history, including use by pastoralists - has negative consequences for communities and other stakeholders. It is also financially damaging for investors who shortcut due process and end up spending time and money dealing with land disputes.
Environmental and Social Impact Assessments
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) UNCTAD; World Bank
This note provides guidance on the conduct of environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs) and the implementation of associated environmental and social management plans (ESMPs). Crop and livestock production, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture all depend on the use of land, water, and other natural resources that are inextricably linked to rural livelihoods, social systems, values, and culture. ESIAs and ESMPs are key tools for identifying and assessing social and environmental risks and benefits at the planning stage of an investment, and for building risk mitigation measures into project design and implementation. Although usually legislative requirements, too often they have been treated as box-ticking exercises. There remainssignificant room for improvement in the conduct of assessment and the rigor with which findings are incorporated into management plans.
Outgrower Schemes
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) UNCTAD; World Bank
This note provides guidance on the design and implementation of outgrower schemes to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for investors and smallholders. Outgrower schemes have gained prominence as a business model that can benefit both smallholders and investors. Such schemes can improve smallholders’ access to markets, finance, infrastructure, and improved growing techniques; can enhance investors’ access to land, labor, and quality produce; and can improve investor-community relations. Associated risks include overdependency, exploitation of power differences, entrenchment of inequalities, lower-than-expected production, and side-selling. Achieving the potential benefits and minimizing the associated risks requires careful design and implementation.
Food Security and Nutrition
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) UNCTAD; World Bank
This note provides guidance on how to ensure tan agricultural investment makes a positive contribution to local and national food security and nutrition. Investments can play a critical role by introducing technologies to increase productivity, by providing demonstration effects, by creating quality jobs, by catalyzing modernization of the sector, and by linking small-scale producers with global markets—all of which, in the right circumstances, contribute to food securityand nutrition. Yet, investments can have a negative impact and be detrimental to food security and nutrition, especially where investments reduce local access to land and water. The challenge for policymakers and investors is how to design policy and business models that maximize the positive benefits to food security and nutrition but minimize the associated risks.
Technology Transfer
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) UNCTAD; World Bank
This note provides guidance to governments and investors on how best to support the development and transfer of technologies to local smallholders and communities. New technology can help boost production and productivity in the agriculture sector and, given the growing global demand forfood and fiber and the limits of natural resources, has the potential to substantially raise incomes for smallholders and rural communities. Improving mechanisms to increase the transmission and adoption of technologies is important for building technological capability in developingcountries. The importation and adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies in part depends on investors’ support and training efforts but ultimately will fail if local smallholders acting as partners in the value chain do not achieve gains that warrant the embrace and use of technology.
Investment Contracts
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) UNCTAD; World Bank
This note provides guidance on the form and content of contracts between investors and governments pertaining to agricultural investments. The best guarantee of positive benefits from foreign investment is a solid foundation of domestic laws that are properly enforced. In many developing countries, however, the necessary domestic laws may not be in place or may not be sufficiently detailed. Even when they are in place, they may not be implemented or enforced. Contracts can help fill the gaps in domestic laws by providing more detailed guidance on what should be contained in the assessments, and using international standards and best practice as the reference points. However, contracts need to be drafted carefully to maximize benefits and reduce risks.
Creating an Enabling Environment
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) UNCTAD; World Bank
This note provides guidance on how to create an investment climate that is conducive to attracting high-quality, responsible investment in agriculture. The investment climate needs to enable investors to survive, to thrive, and to contribute to the local community and the broader economy in a socially and environmentally responsible way. Investors in the agriculture sector noted a variety of factors that inhibit their ability to run successful operations. Failed or struggling investments have consequences that extend well beyond the financial losses that investors incur. An effective enabling environment contributes to the chances of investor success, which is in the interests of all stakeholders.
Additional Resources
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) UNCTAD; World Bank
This document provides introduction by providing overall guidance on the use of terms and abbreviations across the entire notes series. Common overarching principles on responsible agricultural investment which underlie the approach and tenor of the series are also introduced. Note 2 complements others in the series by offering additional resources over and above those provided in each of them.
Relocation and Resettlement
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) UNCTAD; World Bank
This note provides guidance on approaches to relocation and resettlement of people. Although resettlement is ideally avoided, the complexities of unclear, unrecognized, informal, and overlapping land claims in many areas means that it is an issue that investors and governments often need to address. Field research suggests room for improvement in processes and outcomes where resettlement had been undertaken. Critical factors for success included how resettled people perceived that their living situations had changed after resettlement, which includes compensation, access to livelihood opportunities, and social services. Also important was the extent to which people were consulted, where involved in decision making, and had access to grievance mechanisms.
Screening Prospective Investors
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) UNCTAD; World Bank
This note provides guidance to governments on how to screen and select prospective investment projects to ensure they maximize the social, economic, and environmental benefits while minimizing the risks. It provides investors information on what can be expected in cases of good screening practice. The acceptance of investors that later fail financially or have poor social and environmental outcomes has had damaging impacts on many countries as well as communities. Screening investors is a critical component of a country’s policy framework to mitigate those risks and to improve the likelihood that investments will have a positive effect on sustainable development priorities. This note summarizes available resources on how to screen agricultural investments and calls on donors, international organizations, and civil society to develop more. It is complemented by note 7: tools for screening investors, which provides a detailed toolkit that can be adapted to host countries’ individual circumstances.