Following the promulgation of new investment legislation and its related regulations in 2002 and 2003, a rapid increment of private commercial investment in farmland has been noted in Ethiopia. A significant number of foreign and local private investors, in a relatively short span of time, have acquired a sizable tract of land – close to 2 million hectares. The government’s current five year development plan that runs from 2011-2015 envisages to allot more than 3 million hectares of additional land to investors in the next five years. Among the many, one emerging issue of concern is the impacts of the implementation of such investment program on local communities. Opinions on this issue are polarized and as well politically charged. While proponents - the government and policy makers in the main - defend the program as beneficial to the local people in socio-economic and developmental terms, critics from different quarters – international activist organizations, academia, and opposition political parties – on the other hand, express their concern pointing out the various threats that it pauses to the local communities. The organic link between land/territory, settlement patterns of ethnic groups and internal administrative units in contemporary Ethiopian political system have also rendered a unique political dimension to the issue. As the ongoing debate has mainly focused on future outcomes, some effects/impacts of the investment activity on local people have already begun to manifest in areas where land has been transferred to investors as well as marketed as available for large-scale commercial agriculture. Though reports indicating loss of farmlands, communal areas and resources, and/or relocation of people to newly established villages through resettlement and villagization are emerging, little is known as to the forms and extent of the impacts being felt by the various concerned communities. Drawing on interviews, recent reports and pertinent secondary sources, my presentation would like to i) point out the outstanding and peculiar issues of debate related to the recent large-scale land investment activities and its impacts on local communities in Ethiopia; and ii) identify and discuss the forms and extent of the impacts that have begun to manifestly affect local communities. The latter discussion would be made by focusing on the experience of the local communities in one of the Regions - Gambella Region - where the vast majority of the recent private investment in farmland is concentrated.

land investment, local communities