The distribution of land in Malawi is highly unequal and frequently inefficient. Large areas of land are underutilised in a context where many Malawian farmers would be able to put such land to productive use. In this context, the Malawian government has been slow and ineffective in undertaking land reforms, despite large demand for change both from investors and the local population.

Hundreds of land practitioners from around the globe gathered and came together at the 2019 LANDac Conference at the beginning of July with the purpose of looking at land governance from the lens of transformation and in particular, how to support transformation that works for people and nature.  The conference delved into questions such as the long-term dynamics around land, water and food production and promising concepts and tools for building learning and knowledge building about these dynamics.

Sexual extortion is a pervasive but often hidden form of corruption. Instead of money as a bribe, sexual favors are extorted in exchange for the provision of services or goods. This degrading abuse of power also touches the land sector, but remains largely hidden and unaddressed.

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 week an important new book on ‘The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons’ was launched by IDRC and African Minds.

In a saturated marketplace, food and beverage companies too often avoid addressing land rights issues.

FRONT LINE DEFENDERS has documented 821 human rights defenders (HRDs) who have been killed in the four years since we started producing an annual global list in cooperation with national and international NGOs. Seventy-nine percent of this total came from six countries: Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines. The vast majority of these cases have never been properly investigated, and few of the perpetrators of the killings have been brought to justice.

In Zimbabwe, Transparency International has been working extensively on land governance issues, and what has emerged is that women are often coerced to engage in sexual acts with a male person in authority in order to have access to land.  Land is a form of property and a source of livelihood for most people in Zimbabwe.  Both men and women find themselves one way or another being coerced to engage in corruption, mostly bribery to own a piece of land both in the urban and rural/communal areas. However, women are often subjected to sextortion in the quest to own land.

Sextortion: referring to a form of blackmail in which sexual information or images are used to extort sexual favors from the victim. One of the biggest challenges for those working in the land and natural resources sector, has been drawing attention to the fact that this happens in our sector, too and most importantly, that something needs to be done about it. 

The Land Portal Foundation, Mokoro Ltd and Transparency International co-hosted an interactive webinar on sextortion in land governance and its implications on June 25th, 2018. The webinar featured an interactive discussion among expert panelists.  Scroll below to read our interview with Annette Jaitner of Transparency International.  She gives us insights into the matter and what sextortion means for land governance.