Are large scale land acquisitions in Africa pro-development? A network analysis of FDI in land and agro-industry in Wamboye E.; Fayssa B. (ed.) Palgrave Handbook of African Economic Sectors

In this chapter we discuss the recent wave of large scale land acquisitions (LSLA) in Africa through foreign direct investment, under the perspective of its possible impact on growth. We first review the geographic pattern of land investments across the continent and the transmission channels between LSLA and growth. The possibility that land acquisitions could be associated with FDI in agro‐industry (food beverages and tobacco ‐FTB) emerges as an innovative research question. We apply network analysis to the matrixes of FDI in land and agro‐industrial manufacturing in order to test whether they are correlated; which investor countries do couple land acquisitions with agro‐ industry investments; whether there is a process of concentration of FDI flows in specific target African countries. Our findings are that there exist a moderate and significant positive correlation overall between land acquisitions and investments in higher value added segments of the agro‐ industry value chain. However, most investors have a decoupled strategy and only a few African countries are able to attract both types of FDI flows. African countries have a considerable advantage in attracting land investments but many of them may lack the conditions for effectively attracting agroindustrial investments.