Land Unchained?

September 16, 2020

Shifting land registries onto blockchain is a part of the broader move to "unlock the economic potential of land" in order to put more land and natural resources into exploitation by private interests.

Who pays the price of King Leopold’s Bugatti?
September 4, 2020 Frederic Mousseau
On September 5, 2020, a private collection of some of the world’s fanciest cars, belonging to Hubert Fabri, a Belgian millionaire, will be auctioned at a sale at the Hampton Court Palace in London.

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New Laws Threaten Family Farmers and Ethnic Communities in Myanmar
August 25, 2020 Katherine O'Neill
The VFV Law, the Farmland Act, and the LAAR Law are designed to encourage the legal takeover of lands that millions of farmers and Indigenous people rely on for their livelihoods. The three laws are a potent combination which ensure that the practice of land grabbing – widespread in Myanmar under its previous military dictatorship – can continue, now concealed by false promises of 'economic development.'

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Land Privatization: Why Sri Lanka Must Reject the MCC Compact
August 17, 2020 Janhavi Mittal
A recent report by the Oakland Institute examines the MCC compact with Sri Lanka and raises alarm over the irreversible consequences of embarking on land privatization – when most of the land is public in the country.

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An Interview with Daniel Kobei of the Ogiek Peoples' Development Program
August 11, 2020
On June 27, 2020 a heavy contingent of security officers from the Kenya Forestry Service (KFS) started an operation to flash out grazers at the Logoman Forest station, one of the blocks in the Eastern section of the Mau Forest Complex in Kenya.

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World Bank's COVID-19 Assistance to Kenya Benefits Multinational Agribusiness and Agrochemical Firms
July 2, 2020 Frederic Mousseau and Andy Currier
Despite the unprecedented nature of the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Bank continues to drive "private sector solutions to development" under the faulty assumption that catering to multinational companies will trickle down and benefit all.

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Conditional Loans, Uncontrolled Misery: Doing Business in India in the Times of Corona
June 22, 2020 Janhavi Mittal
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought up the specter of the Indian partition as the country continues to witness the misery of large–scale human migration on foot and in deathly trains . However, the divide that emerges is not of two nation states but a widening gulf between India’s elite and millions of its second-class citizens—poor, toiling migrant workers. In the midst of this crisis, at a press conference on May 17, 2020,...

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McDonald's High Tolerance for Inequity, Injustice & Racism
June 11, 2020 Anuradha Mittal
Amidst a global pandemic, McDonald's with its estimated net worth of $163 billion, has failed to provide the basic protective gear to keep its workers safe. 33 cooks and cashiers, mainly Latino including 24 women, at its Telegraph Avenue location in Oakland are on a strike for this reason.

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Ensure Basic Rights of the Working Poor on Cesar Chavez's Day
March 31, 2020 Andy Currier
Forced to continue working in conditions that place their lives at risk, the harsh realities these workers face in daily life are coming center stage.

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Crude Conflict or Climate Justice
March 26, 2020 Victor Menotti
As we isolate ourselves physically due to the global Coronavirus pandemic, it is important to recognize real opportunities to convert the current crisis into a viable transition toward social, economic, and climate justice globally.

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Emperor Has No New Clothes
January 30, 2020
The EBA program was not created to help farmers. The Bank's claims to support farmers via the EBA is inherently contradictory to the own raison d'être of the program. The best way for the World Bank to assist farmers would be to disband the EBA program altogether.

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Oakland Institute: Our Take