04 The World Bank (2017, p. 17) insists that the absence of private land titles poses a risk to private sector development, public investment, and land tenure security. It argues for strategies that promote the participation of community-based organizations, strengthen land rights and natural resource management through the demarcation of community land, and broker partnerships with third parties to generate income for rural communities through local businesses (World Bank, 2017, p. 16). With 70 percent of Mozambicans relying on farming, the absence of protection in the law of usage rights leaves communities vulnerable to the risk of losing rights to the land they farm, particularly when faced with large-scale investors in search of opportunity. On many occasions, individuals or communities have sold their land assets under poor terms, leading to tensions and confrontations (World Bank, 2017, p. 13). The controversy, however, is that the World Bank includes multinational companies in its funding strategy, including the Portuguese company Portucel, which has been involved in the expropriation of land from local farmers in central Mozambique (Bruna, 2017). Indeed, the World Bank’s five-year plan for Mozambique included financing for Portucel, through the IFC. IFC contributed to strengthening the agriculture and agribusiness sectors 26 through a number of its operations. IFC’s investment and advisory support to Portucel, a leading pulp and paper producer, to establish eucalyptus plantations in Zambezia and Manica provinces, is intended to set a US$3 billion investment program on a sustainable course. The investment is aiming to reach 130,000 rural poor and improve food security for 24,000 households, while developing 270,000 ha of sustainable eucalyptus plantations and sequestering 7.5 million tons of CO2 per year (World Bank, 2017, p. 59). The revision of the national land policy and its implications In July 2020, the president of Mozambique, Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, officially launched the public hearing process of the National Land Policy Review, aimed at amending the 1997 Land Law (Law no.19/97), and other regulations that govern land management in the country. Even though the state will continue to hold ownership over land, the revised National Land Policy shifts Mozambique towards a more marketoriented policy framework, that will allow the more flexible transfer of land use rights, known as the Direito do Uso e Aproveitamento da Terra (DUAT) – Land Use and Benefit Rights. This will reduce the power of communities over Fast-tracking Financialization - International Financial Institutions’ Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Mozambique