In 2021, Transparency International and the Equal Rights Trust published Defying Exclusion: Stories and Insights on the Links between Discrimination and Corruption. Bringing together a diverse group of case studies from across the globe, it documented and illustrated the mutually reinforcing links – the vicious cycle – between discrimination and corruption. Defying Exclusion marked the first attempt to systematically explore the phenomena we termed “discriminatory corruption”.

Land corruption – corrupt practices in the land sector – threatens the lives and livelihoods of people and communities, the environment and climate, food security and political stability. Its impacts are particularly acute for 2.5 billion people who live on and from the land. Addressing it requires a dedicated focus and assessment of land related institutions across different national contexts.

Land corruption seriously threatens efforts to fight climate change and achieve a fair energy transition. By undermining climate programmes, projects and practices, it fuels increased carbon emissions and negative climate outcomes. It weakens tenure security and contributes to human rights violations. By channelling funds and resources towards elites, and supporting harmful or poorly managed projects, land corruption also erodes the legitimacy and credibility of the climate agenda, reducing popular support for vital action.

Green energy (and/or renewable energy) requires large areas of land to operate, often more so than energy generated from fossil fuels. The acquisition of land comes with accompanying corruption risks which can lead to challenges such as land grabbing and illegal displacement of communities. To help mitigate corruption risks and their consequences, strong regulatory oversight and rigorous licensing requirements are needed, as well as transparency and community-based approaches to ownership of green energy projects.

Academic scholarship defines sectoral corruption, namely water corruption one of the main threats to the development of Central Asia. While applying a rapid review, the purpose of this article is to explore the current state of research on water corruption, its various forms, and typologies in different water sectors (such as water supply and sanitation, irrigation, hydropower, and water resources management). Specifically, the research seeks to answer the question of how water corruption in Central Asia is defined and analyzed in academic sources.

Struggles to control valuable land, natural and mineral resources are at the heart of many conflicts around the world. Many have their roots in colonial conquest and post-colonial resource grabbing by colluding local and global elites. Land conflicts frequently entail clashes of values and meanings associated with land. Conflict risk is rising with climate change and the race to control critical mineral and water resources. Millions of people face loss of livelihoods and displacement.

This case study challenges assumptions that disaster-hit communities that have lost their houses and possessions would willingly pack up and leave, believing that it is easier to migrate than to remain in their communities. However, for indigenous people like the Munda in Shyamnagar sub-district, migration is not the answer to achieving climate resilience. Because their lives are inextricably linked to their ancestral home, uprooting themselves exacts a toll on their identity and undermines the continuity of their culture and traditions.

“Nature-based” solutions to climate change require the acquisition of large swaths of land for reforestation, afforestation, conservation and renewable energy sources. However, corruption in the land sector is already widespread and this additional demand for land may aggravate pre-existing corruption risks, as well as causing new ones.

Urban planners are entrusted with the power to make critically important, long-term decisions that determine the future development of cities and towns around the world. The decisions they take shape the urban environment and directly affect the lives and livelihoods of entire communities.

Like other land-locked countries in Africa’s Sahel region, Mali is experiencing population pressures, more intense and variable drought cycles, and rising insecurity. Extreme temperatures and episodic rainfall are not unfamiliar to Mali but are going to become even more variable and intense as climates shift. These changes in climate are likely to severely impact the Malian economy and society which is extremely dependent on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forestry.