Africa: Campaigners claim World Bank helps facilitate land grabs

The World Bank is helping corporations and international investors snap up cheap land in Africa and developing countries worldwide at the expense of local communities, environment and farm groups said in a statement released to coincide with the bank's annual land and poverty conference in Washington DC. According to the groups, which include NGO Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) and international peasants' group La Via Campesina, decades of World Bank policies have pushed African and other governments to privatise land and focus on industrial farming. In addition, they say, the bank is playing a 'key role' in the global rush for farmland by providing capital and guarantees to big multinational investors.