Countries trying to boost economic growth are privatising land and other resources, uprooting rural and indigenous communities
A push to privatise land and other resources in countries from Ukraine to Papua New Guinea is hurting indigenous people and the rural poor, while increasing the risks linked to climate change, researchers at a U.S.-based think tank said on Tuesday.
From a rise in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, a push for land titles in Sri Lanka, to the end of a ban on the sale of farmland in Ukraine, there has been an "unprecedented wave" of privatisation worldwide since 2018, a report published by the Oakland Institute said.
As countries bolster economies battered by the coronavirus pandemic, more resources may be privatised, hurting rural communities who often do not have formal titles, it said.
"The fact that most land, especially in the Global South, is public land or land held under customary tenure systems, is seen as an obstacle to economic growth," said Frederic Mousseau, policy director at the Oakland Institute and lead author.
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Privatisation hurting the poor? That almost never happens.