Microfinance programs targeting poor women are considered a ‘prudent’ first step for international financial institutions seeking to rebuild post conflict economies. IFIs continue to visibly support microfinance despite evidence and growing consensus that microfinance neither reduces poverty nor breaks the cycle of domestic violence. In the case of Timor-Leste, a feminist political economy approach reveals how microfinance engendered debt allows for the control, extraction, and accumulation of profits and resources by an elite class and exacerbates gender-based violence.

Cambodia has recently demonstrated one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. While scholars have long explored the drivers of tropical forest loss, the case of Cambodia offers particular insights into the role of the state where transnational governance and regional integration are increasingly the norm. Given the significant role logging rents play in Cambodia’s post-conflict state formation, this article explores the contemporary regime and its ongoing codependent relationship with forested land.

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).

Cambodia has suffered some of the highest rates of deforestation (measured as a percentage of forest cover) of any country since the 1970s – and rates have been increasing significantly in the past decade. Even the country’s so-called protected areas have been severely impacted, despite supposedly being safeguarded under Cambodian law.

Global Forest Watch estimated that between 2001 and 2018, Cambodia had lost 557 000 hectares of tree cover in protected areas, representing an 11.7% loss of the total protected area.

Ulster University and the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights has released the first sector wide study on corporate integrity in Uzbekistan.

The report and associated policy brief focus on the cotton cluster system, a landmark privatisation initiative designed to improve agro-industrial productivity, and address the structural drivers of systematic forced labour in Uzbekistan. State-organised forced labour regimes in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector have attracted significant domestic and international criticism over the past decade.

On 27 April 2021 President Kenyatta launched the National Land Information Management System (NLIMS);the culmination of years of digitisation of chaotic land records. It is expected to ease title transfers and safeguard public land from grabbers. It coincided with the opening of a National Geospatial Data Centre;an online depository that will contain all the land records in the country.

Since the arrival of multinational agribusiness company SOCFIN in 2011 as part of a large-scale investment in palm oil in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone;social conflict has raged in the Malen Chiefdom. SOCFIN is controlled by a Belgian businessman (Hubert Fabri) and the French group Bolloré;which has developed a business empire in many parts of Africa. This report found that affected communities who have lost access to and control over their land have been exposed to serious human rights violations and abuses since 2011.

This publication is based on the “Study on Fraud in Land Administration Systems” presented at the Twelfth Session of the Working Party on Land Administration in 2021. It is an update to the 2011 “Study on the Challenges of Fraud to Land Administration Institutions" (ECE/HBP/165). It analyses the current state of play and best practices in addressing fraud in land administration systems in the ECE region.

Fraud and corruption are the main enabling mechanisms for land abuses in Brazil, guaranteeing impunity for land grabbers and other public and private agents involved in these schemes. This is what is evidenced in the research report, “Weak land governance, fraud and corruption: fertile ground for land grabbing,” which systematizes for the first time the relationship between these issues. Thereby, the study seeks to understand precisely why and how corruption and fraud associated with land grabbing occur.  

The Land Corruption Risk Mapping Instrument is designed to raise awareness and understand how to detect corruption in land governance issues. The instrument is developed in a way that it can be applied in any Sub-Saharan African country. It is published as a handbook that gives explanations, guidance and examples.

This guide was developed to assist participatory video practitioners to undertake corruption-focussed projects and to encourage its uptake within the anti-corruption movement worldwide. Participatory video is a form of community media that engages citizens in the processes of investigating and documenting their circumstances, devising solutions and advocating for change. The videos produced can be used to establish communications between citizens and decision-makers, opening up new spaces for dialogue and opportunities for increased social accountability.

The following are the major steps that were used before in allocating residential stands in Harare. However, these have been changed to accommodate the interests of the policymakers and senior council management. These new changes have opened the system to manipulation of town planning regulations. The Harare Residents’ Trust (HRT) is sharing these steps in the public interest. Several residents have lost their money through corruption involving officials, Councillors, land barons and real estate agencies who sometimes pocket money that they do not deserve.