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.

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.

“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.

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.

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”.

This study was on mitigating land corruption through computerisation of land governance activities that include land use planning, cadastral surveying, servicing of land, land allocation, land registration and titling and land development. Using evidence from Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Kitwe (Zambia), the study used both primary and secondary data to conclude that despite computerisation of land governance activities in Tanzania and Zambia, corruption still persists.

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.

This factsheet gives answers on how climate exacerbates root causes of conflict in Uganda, using an climate security pathway analysis. Two main climate security pathway are identified: 1. Livelihood and Food Insecurity: Climate change and variability affect Uganda ́s agricultural production and food security. Inequalities in terms of gender and youth further increase the vulnerability of affected rural populations to adapt to the challenges of climate change.

La présente contribution tente d’élucider la problématique foncière en relation avec la corruption des élites urbaines, des courtiers politiques et des acteurs de l’arène politico-administrative. En effet, il n’y a presque pas de régime politique sans scandales de corruption, sans pillage de l’économie en général et de l’économie agraire en particulier. La corruption foncière est bien organisée dans les arcanes du pouvoir aussi bien au niveau local, intermédiaire que central. On pourrait parler d’une « chaîne de corruption » foncière.

Sud-Cameroun Hévéa (“SudCam”), a giant monoculture rubber plantation and a Cameroonian subsidiary base of Halcyon Agri Corporation Limited (“Halcyon Agri”) has come under intense scrutiny and criticism due to the severe human rights violations and threats to biodiversity inflicted upon the surrounding Indigenous Peoples, local communities and workers.