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
 

Investing in land, and in activities requiring land, occurs around the world. As a broad category, “land and investments” encompasses a wide range of scenarios: investments may be small or large in terms of the amount of money invested and scale of the land acquired. Investments may be undertaken for activities ranging from agriculture or forestry to infrastructure, extractive projects, renewable energy, or even tourism; and may involve a variety of actors, such as local smallholders, national governments, local investors, or foreign corporations, among others.

Evidence updates, produced by LEGEND’s Core Land Support Team, provide a series of short briefs, summarising emerging bodies of evidence from different sources on key themes related to land governance or particular country issues. They offer technical advisers, policy-makers and researchers a way of keeping abreast of research to provide a source of quick evidence-based pointers on what to do and what to avoid in land-related policy and programming.