Vietnam, which has a long history of theft of timber from neighbouring Laos and Cambodia, recently initialled a timber trade agreement with the European Union. This will see Vietnam implement legislation to address imports of illegally harvested or traded timber, in return for timber exports to the EU being deemed to comply with the requirements of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR).

Land is consistently ranked among the sectors where people most often report having to pay bribes to access services, according to Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer. The Land Portal has summarised the latest available (dated 2013) global data here, which shows that the incidence of bribes paid for land services can be over 50% in countries such as Cambodia, India and Pakistan.

Forced evictions violate a number of internationally and nationally recognized human rights. However, it directly translates to a denial of the right to adequate housing which forms the very foundational basis for the realization of other rights. In the long run, it affects people’s social and economic livelihoods. However, forced evictions remain a practice that is majorly carried out in urban centers in Kenya.

Rural households are displaced from their lands without any plan in place to resettle or compensate them, for a promise of improvement in their living standards. This has not only resulted in a decline in the living standard of the rural populace, in terms of loss of land and livelihoods, the poor are also further marginalized and impoverished. This study examines the welfare implication of domestic land grabs among rural households in Delta State, Nigeria, employing primary data obtained from one hundred and seventy-three representative farming households.

The Secretariat has the honour to present to the Human Rights Council the report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, prepared pursuant to Council resolution 33/12. In the report the Special Rapporteur briefly refers to the activities undertaken since the submission of her last report, provides a thematic study on attacks against and the criminalization of indigenous human rights defenders and reflects on available prevention and protection measures. She concludes with recommendations on how various stakeholders can prevent violations and improve protection.

Examines the political economy of agricultural commercialisation in Malawi over the past three decades;which has been influenced to a very large extent by the changing configurations of political elites and their underlying interests;incentives and motivations;including using the agricultural sector as a source of political patronage;fraud and corruption.

In many countries, unidentified private individuals and legal entities obtain significant economic benefits from land. This lack of transparency can make it harder for affected communities and governments to hold them accountable for land use decision-making and any sort of violation they commit. It can also leave investors open to risk if they do not know who is truly behind a company they are doing business with. 

About the webinar

Corruption in the land sector affects every second citizen in Africa, with devastating impacts for individuals, communities and the development of fragile nations. Transparency International has adopted a range of community-led initiatives, which are helping to amplify the voices of women and men affected by land corruption and push for change to systems, structures, practices and cultural norms that allow corruption to flourish in the land sector.

Examines the link between land and water grabbing, the people that are most impacted by this, and legal frameworks related to both land and water rights. Describes the impacts of land and water grabbing in Kenya and Ethiopia. Examines integrity risks in the Ethiopian government’s leasing of land and water resources to foreign investors, and the land reform process in Kenya after the launch of the 2010 Kenyan Constitution. This summary document identifies how powerful actors are taking control of land and water resources at the expense of poorer, local communities.

IN’s latest resource is an introduction to the topic Land and Water Grabbing: A discussion of integrity implications and related risks, which discusses the integrity implications and risks of land and water grabbing. The essay examines the link between land and water grabbing, the people that are most impacted by this, and legal frameworks related to both land and water rights. Land and Water Grabbing describes the impacts of land and water grabbing in Kenya and Ethiopia.

This note is for private sector project implementers and financers (development finance institutions, international development agencies, commercial lenders and equity investors) seeking to invest responsibly in new greenfield sites in low and middle- income countries. It aims to provide practical guidance on identifying and addressing community land conflicts to prevent them escalating into disputes between the project and local communities.