Contrats d’investissement pour les terres agricoles et l’eau : 10 étapes

This guide provides a 10-step framework for parliamentarians, officials, and local communities to negotiate investment contracts for agricultural land and water with foreign investors, focusing on sustainable development and the protection of local rights.

• The guide outlines 10 essential steps for negotiating investment contracts to support sustainable development, emphasizing that the contract is the start of a long-term relationship between the investor, government, and local communities rather than a final result.
• Poor project design and a failure to determine viability are primary causes of high failure rates in agricultural investments. A 2012 World Bank review of 179 projects across 32 countries found that half were financial failures or moderate failures due to fundamental flaws such as inappropriate locations, poor crop choices, or overly optimistic planning assumptions.
• Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are often missing in the agricultural sector or conducted after contract signing. To be effective, EIA results and subsequent management plans should be incorporated into the contract as legally binding elements, with non-compliance treated as a substantial breach of contract.
• In many states where investment contracts are signed, land and water rights are often unrecognized, vague, based on local custom, or nonexistent, which can lead to investors receiving secure tenure while local communities are left with weak or no rights.
• Stabilization clauses, particularly common in Africa, can be problematic if they prevent the application of new laws or require the government to indemnify investors. While broad stabilization clauses covering non-fiscal regulatory areas (such as environment, labor, health, and safety) are widely considered unacceptable, limited fiscal stabilization clauses may be supported to prevent arbitrary or discriminatory laws.
• To ensure sustainable development, contracts should include legally binding obligations for investors to contribute to local development, such as creating jobs, training local labor, establishing processing industries, and selling a portion of production on the local market. A Community Development Agreement (CDA) can provide a legal framework for this participation, potentially funding a Community Development Fund from a percentage of project profits.
• Regarding dispute resolution, the guide recommends that host states prioritize national courts over international arbitration. If international arbitration is used, it should only occur after attempts to resolve the dispute amicably through national processes.

APA

Smaller, C. (2013). Contrats d’investissement pour les terres agricoles et l’eau : 10 étapes. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/investment_contracts_farmland_fr.pdf

Chicago

Smaller, Carin. Contrats d’investissement pour les terres agricoles et l’eau : 10 étapes. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2013. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/investment_contracts_farmland_fr.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Smaller |first1=Carin |title=Contrats d’investissement pour les terres agricoles et l’eau : 10 étapes |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=April 2013 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/investment_contracts_farmland_fr.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{smaller2013contrats, author = {Smaller, Carin}, title = {{Contrats d’investissement pour les terres agricoles et l’eau : 10 étapes}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2013}, month = apr, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/investment_contracts_farmland_fr.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }