New technologies and the threat to sovereignty in Africa
Pambazuka News

The electronic Pambazuka News, which disseminates analysis and debate on the struggle for freedom and justice through the voices of the peoples of Africa and the global South, published a special issue on "New technologies and the threat to sovereignty in Africa", including articles on plantation projects that come under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the UN’s Kyoto protocol.

Khadija Sharife’s “Pulp fact or fiction?” looks at whether clean development mechanism projects like the 12-year-old plantations undertaken by Norway-based Green Resources in East Africa can bring benefits to people on the ground or not.

The article “Unclean development mechanism” by Blessing Karumbidza concludes that they do not. Describing the experience of Idete village in the highlands of southern Tanzania, the site of a Green Resources plantation, Karumbidza concludes that land-intensive projects negatively affect the livelihoods of people who rely on the land for food and other resources.

“The funding of climate change adaptation and mitigation-oriented programmes in Africa has opened up new forms of resource imperialism, extractive investment and land grabbing opportunities, in particular for European and Chinese companies.”