Full involvement of local people is very necessary to ensure proper management of land for the benefit of local people, this is according to Tanja Pickardt. She was speaking during the GIZ session at Tropentag 2011 on the topic “participation of the local population in the context of large-scale land acquisitions and leases” . She indicated that large scale land accusition is a big issue in most parts of the world especially in developing countries adding that the figures of land sales went up from 50 million hectares (published by the World Bank in 2010) to 80 million hectares (published by IFP in 2011). On a broader picture, she noted that 227 million hectares of land has been sold or leased since 2001 based on media releases and case study research. According to Tanja, the focus of large scale land investment is in Sub-sahara Africa mostly for biofuel, food crop cultivation, industrial crops and livetock, as well as game farm and forestry. Opportunities for large scale land investment According to the speaker, it is generally agreed that investments in agriculture and rural development are urgently needed in developing countries but governments often do not allocate the needed resources to this sector. This means that private sector involvement is necessary but under what circumstances can private sector involvement help to realize oppportunities and to contribute to improve the living conditions of the local people? She mentioned some of the possible opportunities of land investment as; 1. Provision of additional income 2. Creation of additional job opportunities 3. Improving livelihoods of local population 4. Supply of capital and technical know how 5. Improvement of infrastructure and technology for realization of untilized agricultural potential 6. Positive impact on supply and cost of food 7. Increased tax income for host countries 8. Market access for farmers in rural areas, etc. She however added that most of these opportunities exist only in theory and have been realized only in few countries usually with the help of development partners. Risks of large scale land investments In terms of the risks that could emanate from large scale land investment, Tanja Pickardt outlined some key points such as; 1. Endangering of food security and water supply 2. agravation of land conflicts 3. creation of risks in local jobs 4. resettlement without compensation and forced evictions 5. insuficient contractual provisions to protect interest of local people 6. discrepancy between the availability of productive land and supply of water for irrigation. She explained that many of these risks are due to lack of participation by affected populations in decision making and negotiation during the purchase of lands. But how can we achieve participation of local people and why has it not been successful until now? Reasons for lack of participation The speaker outlined some of the reasons for poor participation of local people as; 1. Information assymetry and power imbalance between investors, governments and affected local population (normally the weaker group) 2. Lack of information about land rights situation 3. Local people are not informed about their rights 4. Corruption 5. Level of participation is low. Usually, local people are consulted and give consent without understanding the terms of the contract 6. Not all interest groups do have legitimate representatives in the agreement Examples of how solutions have been found in some places Integrated land use planning in Namibia According to Tanja Pickardt, Namibia is a centrally governed state with only limited amount of decentralization. She said that the land use planning started at national and regional level and the main challenge was to identify existing and planned project strategy. Detailed information was gathered about plans and projects and the land mapping then took place. Based on the mapping, and zoning, the formulation of an integrated land use plan was done. The big question according to the speaker was how to get a participatory planning approach. The approach chosen was to do a local assessment and rank with representatives of local people their identified key local issues. The first challenge of this approach was how to find those representative of all interest groups of the local population. She explained that due to a low population density, settlements were very far from each other so it was not possible to do a village assembly. A participatory planning of key issues was conducted with the representatives and the integration and planning took place. She opined that this kind of zonation from a participatory approach allows for allocation of land to various uses so that people know which land can be given to investors and for what kind of investment. Inclusive business model in Ethiopia The speaker explained that this model involves partnerships between small scale farmers and investors that are ecologically viable and contribute to economic growth and development. The idea is to integrate financially and technically organized small holders into the value chain. Tanja Pickardt stated that this has the potential to create employment and income for local people if done properly. Some of examples of such partnerships were mentioned as; joint ventures, contract farming, equity schemes and outgrower schemes . In conclusion, she reiterated that the participation and full involvement of local people is very necessary to ensure that the local population can have an equitable share of benefits .