Africa remains a net food importing region spending more than USD 35 billion annually on food imports, although this continent has about 65% of the uncultivated arable land left in the world to feed 9 billion people by 2050 (AfDB, 2016). Land tenure remains a major challenge across the continent and only about 10% of Africa’s rural land is registered. In Cameroon, in particular, land as an asset, an input or an income source is not equally possessed by any individual or household with respect to gender and place of living.

The land sector is increasingly being cited as a corruption hub. Many countries across the globe are grappling with land-related corruption that dates to the colonial years and which have metamorphosed into historical injustices and continue to be a source of conflict and violation of basic human rights. Cases of land grabbing, compensation-less expropriation, gender-based discrimination in accessing and ownership of land and related resources, illegal mining deals, bribing to access land administration services among others are not new in the lands sector.

This blog is a summary of a paper that assesses the effectiveness of a specific land tenure intervention to improve the lives of women, by asking new questions of available project data sets.

Next week the Conference on Land Policy in Africa (CLPA) - Winning the Fight against Corruption in the Land Sector: Sustainable Pathway for Africa’s Transformation, will take place in Abidjan. The African Union recognises that corruption is a key factor hampering efforts at promoting governance, socio-economic transformation, peace and security, and the enjoyment of human rights in the Member States.

“This plot is not for sale” are the six words you will find, marked on a lot of properties and plots of land in Uganda. The words are meant to ward off quack land or property brokers and conmen. Most of the cases handled in courts in Uganda, and Kampala in particular, are fraud-related cases (like selling land while the true owners are away using counterfeit titles) and land transaction fraud (when fake land titles are obtained and sadly some officers in the land registry are involved).

Last week the World Cocoa Foundation, a membership organization of more than 100 cocoa companies, held its annual partnership meeting in Berlin, Germany. The aim of the meeting is for governments, cocoa companies and farmers to identify and tackle the sector’s largest sustainability challenges. A 90-minute session was devoted to the topic of land tenure. The prominence of the session, as well as the seniority of the presenters – the Head of Sustainable Sourcing for Hershey’s and the Deputy Director General of Cote d’Ivoire’s Land Agency among them – is a powerful signaling effect.

In the past decade, significant international attention focused on “land grabs” in developing countries by companies and others hungry for land to grow food and procure resources for the world’s growing population.

This story was submitted as part of the Land Portal Data Stories Contest and was the recipient of the second prize.

By Chris Hufstader

After an audacious land grab by a foreign company, indigenous women in a remote Cambodian village struggle to regain their farms and sacred sites.

Something exciting is around the corner! Our team is hard at work building a spatial platform, fit for the needs of everyday users! We want to be gone with polygons and spatial coordinates being reserved for experts.  What we really want is for conversations around data to be inclusive. This platform aims to achieve exactly that! Read more here below: 

Why a Spatial Platform? 

This week, more than 1,500 development professionals from around the world are gathering at the World Bank’s annual Land and Poverty Conference, discussing the latest research and innovations in policies and good practice on land governance.