Paper short abstract:

Why do global governance mechanisms for ‘responsible’ investments feature strongly in some but not other large-scale foreign investment cases in Sierra Leone? Post-war variations within the customary tenure system in Sierra Leone can help to explain the uneven use of international guidelines.

Paper long abstract:

Throughout the last decade, the international donor community has developed a plethora of regulatory initiatives for ‘responsible’ agricultural investments. It remains unclear how and where such guidelines are invoked in practice, by whom, and whether their use can prevent conflict and lead to ‘win-win’ situations, as promoted. This paper explores why international guidelines seem to feature strongly in some but not in other cases of large-scale investments in post-war Sierra Leone. Based on 6 months of fieldwork, I argue that the uneven use of global governance mechanisms by investors, civil society actors, and government representatives is related to variations within the customary land tenure regime in Sierra Leone. Most large-scale investments are located in the country’s provinces on land under customary tenure, where paramount chiefs still play an important role in controlling the access to land and other natural resources. I argue that in the post-conflict period (since 2002), the customary land tenure system in Sierra Leone has tended to evolve in two different directions: One form of customary tenure is characterised by the continuous powerful role of paramount chiefs controlling the access to land, while the other form is characterised by an emerging strong role of family-based authority over land. This de-facto distinction between two types of customary tenure systems can help to explain why some investment projects tend to conform more to international guidelines than others.