This paper analyses patterns of corruption and corruption risks related to community mineral beneficiation schemes (CMBSs) that distribute benefits funded by mineral revenues to communities. It analyses insights from existing scholarship on CMBSs, evidence from seven cases of corruption, and lessons from guidance documents on reducing corruption in the mining value chain. The aim of the paper is to stimulate debate and further research about the suitability of anti-corruption strategies for CMBSs.

Governance quality plays a key role in private sector development: competent bureaucrats not only create good policies and regulations but also effectively implement them to shape the business environment. The authors exploit Vietnam’s decentralization of administrative tasks since the early 2000s to test this hypothesis. The authors examine how changes in the provincial administration of national business regulations affect firms through two channels: within firm productivity levels and resource allocation across firms.

Land corruption affects women and men, but the impact is experienced differently by each gender. Packed with practical advice, this guide, produced by Transparency International, will help organisations understand these differences in order to design advocacy programmes that are both inclusive and effective.

Many information technology initiatives have emerged in recent years with the aim of improving natural resource management. These take a variety of technological forms designed either to directly curb corruption in resource extraction and production, or to enhance information flows, facilitate citizen participation, and hold specific actors accountable. Donors can play a role in connecting the divide between development practitioners, technologists, and researchers by supporting the use of tools in programs and evaluations.

The Enterprise Surveys (ES) focus on many aspects of the business environment. These factors can be accommodating or constraining for firms and play an important role in whether an economy’s private sector will thrive or not. An accommodating business environment is one that encourages firms to operate efficiently. Such conditions strengthen incentives for firms to innovate and to increase productivity, key factors for sustainable development.

Pakorpa Susangho’ (Widow’s Cry) is an exploration of how corruption impacts on widows in the Upper East region of Ghana. This participatory video was devised and shot by ten widows from Kulbia, on the outskirts of Bolgatanga, using cutting-edge production techniques and equipment (including iPads as powerful video cameras). The filmmakers, whose ages range from 29 to 60, lack any formal education yet learned to operate the equipment with confidence and skill during a series of participatory video workshops packed with fun games and exercises.

Este informe documenta y analiza los cambios en la estructura de la propiedad agraria en Colombia durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX y la primera década del siglo XXI. Se examina primero la legislación agraria y el reparto de tierras baldías en la primera mitad del siglo XX, para ver en perspectiva histórica la configuración de la estructura de la propiedad rural y establecer el peso que en esta han tenido las políticas de tierras del Estado colombiano.

Large-scale land acquisitions, or land grabs, concentrate in developing countries which are also known for their corruption-friendly setting caused by a weak institutional framework. We argue that corrupt elites exploit this given institutional set-up to strike deals with international investors at the expense of the local population. Using panel data for 157 countries from 2000-2011, we provide evidence that these land deals indeed occur more often in countries with higher levels of corruption.

In Burma, where 70 percent of people earn a living through agriculture, securing land is often equivalent to securing a livelihood. But instead of creating conditions for sustainable development, recent Burmese governments have enacted abusive laws, enforced poorly conceived policies, and encouraged corrupt land administration officials that have promoted the displacement of small-scale farmers and rural villagers.

A surge in land grabbing over the past decade has seen millions of people displaced from their homes and farmland, often violently, and pushed deeper into poverty. As demand for food, fuel and commodities increases pressure on land, companies are all too often striking deals with corrupt state officials without the consent of the people who live on it. Until now, there has been little analysis of the role that corruption plays in the transfer of land and natural resources from local communities to political and business elites.  

Corruption in land governance is commonly defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain while carrying out the functions of land administration and land management. When land investors target countries with weak governance, the risk of corruption is high. Likewise, corruption is more likely to occur when local elites are able to manipulate their country’s land governance systems for their own benefit