Implications of Land Grabbing and Resource Curse for Sustainable Development Goal 2 in Africa: Can Globalization Be Blamed?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper needs revison. The background should be expanded. The literatüre is not enough. The methology should be added and the authors shoul clearfy the metroda. There should be more specific and detailed and significant conclusions.
Author Response
Good day, here is my response.
Response to comments above
The paper beginning from the introduction has been revised comprehensively (See the introduction section). The background of the study has been expanded to include detailed explanation of globalization, its benefits and potentials, which includes land grabbing and global partnerships. The literature review has also been expanded to include topical issue of the impact of globalization on Africa’s hunger index rate, global partnerships, and resource curse. And more recent literature has been inserted in the review of literature. The paper now has a separate sub-heading for methodology (See item 3, numbers 254-264).. In this section, the specific research method utilized in the paper was explained with reasons for its selection. The conclusion has been more specific and focus on the findings of the paper. The conclusion now flows from the findings in the paper.
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript Type: Research Manuscript with Manuscript ID sustainability-2402400
Article Title: Implications of Land Grabbing and Resource Curse for Sustainable Development Goal 2 in Africa: Can globalization be blamed?
General comment
The paper titled “ Implications of Land Grabbing and Resource Curse for Sustainable Development Goal 2 in Africa: Can globalization be blamed?” is topical and speaks to a contemporary discourse that is of interest to local and international audiences.
Methodology/approach
The article follows a qualitative research method following a critical discourse of globalisation’s pros and cons described as the two seemingly incompatible positions of Joseph Stiglitz. I wish to advise the author to discuss the methodology adopted. Is it a systematic literature review, critical literature review, discourse analysis or critical discourse literature The paper attempts to provide answers to the following research questions:
1. Could Africa’s hunger index rate be connected to the fallouts of globalization?
2. Why is Africa not being able to feed its population despite collaborations, collective action on climate, and partnership with developed countries?
3. Can the resource curse in some African countries be linked to globalization?
Literature Review/Conceptual review/theory
This is satisfactory, as an adequate number of academic materials were used, cited and referenced. The concepts that underpinned the study were clearly explained and operationalised.
Limitations and Future Directions
The article’s limitations of the current study and direction for future research are missing.
Recommendation
Having read with great interest the 12-page titled article, I would like to state that a great deal of time, academic rigour and professionalism went into writing the manuscript. The language is clear and understandable for an international audience. I recommend a minor revision. It must be stated which methodology was used and why. The practical effects of the results on the three research questions were currently ignored in the work. The article’s limitations of the current study and direction for future research are absent.
Author Response
Good day, I have attached the reply to your comments on my paper. Thank you
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript addresses an important issue in land governance in Africa. However, there are some issues that needs to be addressed before the manuscript can be publihsed.
1. The authors failed to define, contextualise and show the trend of land grabbing in Africa. This could have at least provided a theoretical understanding of the phenomenon and its relationship with the natural resource curse. The authors need to define these terms and illustrate how they relate
2. The author wrongly asserts that land grabbing is illegal. This is incorrect between land grabbing operates within the background of the law of contract and this means it is legal. The only problem is that it raises issues of governance, like lack of local communities participation in the decision-making, lack of access to relevant information, non-transparent and exclusionary land deals (see for example, Cotula Land grabbing in the Shadow of the law)
3. There are lots of sweeping statements requiring substantiation. Also, lots of old sources are used by the authors. Some of the views raised in these sources have been counter-argued by recent sources.
4. The authors do not seemingly understand the SDGs. They wrongly indicate that the SDGS were adopted to address hunger and poverty in Africa. This is wrong as the SDGs are global goals, unlike the MDGs which focused on Africa. The SDGs are the most ambitious global road map seeking to address contemporary global pressing issues within the framework of sustainable development.
Detail comments are in the manuscript
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Unnecessary long sentences. This makes reading and comprehension of the author's view difficult. It is recommended that the author uses short and concise sentences to convey their views/arguments. There is also the issue of poor grammar and poor construction of sentences in some cases. The article would benefit from thorough language editing.
Author Response
Good day, I have attached the reply to your comments on my paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
1. The abstract needs to be shortened and made concise to clearly delineate the issue under investigation as suggested by the title. Currently, it purports to address a lot of interrelated issues.
2. The abstract further proposes to have two aims and it is unclear what is the actual aim of the manuscript. It will be better for the authors to join these and state that “Another related aim of the article is to XXX
3. The author also said globalization has advantages and disadvantages without highlighting these to the reader
4. Another problematic issue is the failure of the authors to clarify which category of the land grab (national or international, big or small or tribal or ethnic) they will be focusing on and why.
5. The manuscript was not edited. They are still serious grammatical and language construction errors. This must be addressed before the manuscript is published
They're still grammatical errors. This is exacerbated by long sentences that obscure the readability and clarity of the author's view/arguments. The article needs to be thoroughly edited before it can be published
Author Response
The five comments raised by the reviewer in round two of the review have been thoroughly corrected and responded to. See the attached paper and response to comments.
Response to round 2 comments
Comment 1: The abstract needs to be shortened and made concise to clearly delineate the issue under investigation as suggested by the title. Currently, it purports to address a lot of interrelated issues
The abstract has been reduced and harmonized to reflect the core issues of globalization, land grabbing, and resource curse in Africa. The abstract now strongly reflects the title of the paper. All the interrelated issues have been concisely harmonized. (See the color red part of the abstract in the article).
Comment 2: The abstract further proposes to have two aims and it is unclear what is the actual aim of the manuscript. It will be better for the authors to join these and state that “Another related aim of the article is to XXX
The abstract now has one single aim and other related aims have been harmonized. (See the abstract section)
Comment 3: The author also said globalization has advantages and disadvantages without highlighting these to the reader.
This correction has been made. The advantages and disadvantages of globalization have now been highlighted (See numbers 29-33 of the introduction section)
Comment 4: Another problematic issue is the failure of the authors to clarify which category of the land grab (national or international, big or small or tribal or ethnic) they will be focusing on and why.
The international land grabbing, big, and ethnic land grab category are now the focus of the paper (See numbers 69-76 of the paper). It is also highlighted in red ink/color.
Comment 5: The manuscript was not edited. They are still serious grammatical and language construction errors. This must be addressed before the manuscript is published
The entire article has been re-subjected to language and grammatical editing.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
