NGOs Criticise World Bank Over ‘Land Grabs’

Environmental and farm groups have accused the World Bank of helping corporations and international investors snap up cheap land in Africa and developing countries worldwide at the expense of local communities.

In a statement released to coincide with the bank's annual land and poverty conference in Washington DC, the groups, which include NGO Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) and La Via Campesina, say that decades of World Bank policies have pushed African and other governments to privatise land and focus on industrial farming.

FOEI, in a separate report, points out that, "The result has often been … people forced off land they have traditionally farmed for generations, more rural poverty and greater risk of food shortages."

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