Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power to acquire illicit benefit for private gain. Corrupt practices in the context of land administration and land management have come to be known as ‘land corruption’. As with all other forms of corruption, it thrives in the dark corners of closed systems where transparency is lacking, and accountability can be avoided.

Open Data is data that can be freely used, shared and built-on by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose. Open Data is widely considered to be an effective response to land corruption by increasing transparency, supporting innovation and increasing civic engagement. Advocates of open data believe in its potential for empowering citizens to gain more insight on government spendings and land-related decisions; giving civil society greater power to hold governments accountable for their actions.

What is the state of land information in South Africa? Is there really a lack of land data to support decisions and to improve land governance? This was the point of departure that a team of specialists grappled with to uncover the many different sources of land data and information available in South Africa. For the very first time, they attempted to systematically review and categorize the entire ecosystem of data and information related to key land topics in the country, assessing over 104 land datasets from 59 different sources.

Within the framework of implementing the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT), this paper summarizes the empirical findings from three sequentially related phases of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) VGGT programme, implemented as a pilot project in 2018. The methodology used relied first on context analysis of the critical aspects influencing and hindering women´s land rights.

This compilation of resources aims to help journalists cover the medium- to long-term impacts of the global pandemic on the governance of the oil, gas and mining industries in resource-rich countries. It includes blog posts with media-relevant resources such as good examples of existing coverage, suggested story angles and data sources.

The report is based on a collaboration between the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa and the Land Portal Foundation, in collaboration with local partners, in individual countries. It is based on a wide-ranging survey of sources of land information in South Africa, conducted by the CSIR, ‘Sources of Land Information in South Africa and their Institutional Context’, published as a companion document.

This virtual side event was proposed as part of the 2020 SDG High Level Political Forum which was held from 7th to 16th July 2020. It was organised by the SDG Land Momentum Group, an informal group of civil society organizations and multilateral agencies which advocate the implementation of the land targets of the SDGs and support their monitoring.  

This brochure provides a brief inroduction to LandVoc, the linked land governance thesaurus.  Logistical as well as technical information are provided. 

This report provides a summary of a two-part online workshop in June 2020 to explore the creation of a community of experts to support the ongoing development of the LandVoc concept scheme, and to support ongoing contributions from the LandVoc community to AGROVOC. The workshops brought together 35 experts mprove awareness of the importance of controlled and multilingual vocabularies, and of value of semantics to management. of agriculture and land related knowledge.  

The interrelationship between secure land rights and economic development has gained increasing recognition, as a driver of economic development around the world. For indigenous peoples and communities, women and other vulnerable groups, secure land rights are fundamental for reducing poverty and boosting their shared prosperity. However, two-thirds of the world’s population still does not have access to secure tenure.

This document sums up part of the presentations given during the first part of the LandVoc Community of Experts workshop, held on June 8th, 2020.  This workshop focused on the origins of LandVoc, how LandVoc is being used, future uses of LandVoc and the promotion of LandVoc uptake.  

Land Portal and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have collaborated on this project designed “…to uncover, democratize and improve the land data and information ecosystem in South Africa” (Land Portal Foundation, 2019). This is one of a number of State of Land Information (SoLI) projects in an international process covering a number of countries. The first part of the project involved in-country teams scoping the information landscape (resulting in this report).