Download TacklingCorruptionOpenData.pdf (15.06 MB)
As a service provider in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development and international education work, we are dedicated to shaping a future worth living around the world. We have over 50 years of experience in a wide variety of areas, including economic development and employment promotion, energy and the environment, and peace and security. The diverse expertise of our federal enterprise is in demand around the globe – from the German Government, European Union institutions, the United Nations, the private sector, and governments of other countries.
The vision of the Land Portal Foundation is to improve land governance to benefit those with the most insecure land rights and the greatest vulnerability to landlessness through information and knowledge sharing.
Opening up land-related administrative data, combining it with data from other sources and processing and making this data available as easily accessible information for women and men equally could be a means to counteracting land corruption in land management, land administration and land allocation. But does open data and enhanced data transparency indeed help to counteract land corruption?
In order to answer this question, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH with the support of the German Federal Government, commissioned the study The Role of Open Data in Fighting Land Corruption: Evidence, Opportunities and Challenges, which will be published in January 2021. Initial findings of this study suggest that the current data revolution and open data can play an important role in realizing sustainable land governance.
This webinar took place on January 28th from 3:00-4:30 PM CET (9:00-10:30 ET) to discuss the findings of this study and explore recommendations to enhance the use of open data in counteracting land corruption. The webinar brought together leading land governance, anti-corruption and open data experts to discuss what it takes for open data to have an impact on land corruption, as well as to arrive at recommendations that can guide practitioners and policy makers.
Moderator
Tim Hanstad
Chandler Foundation
Panelists
Dr. Marcello De Maria
Postdoctoral
Researcher
School of
Agriculture Policy
and Development
University of Reading
Ania Calderon
Executive Director
Open Data Charter
Ellen O. Pratt
Commissioner
Liberia
Land Authority
Dr. Andreas Lange
Senior Advisor
Rural Development
and Food Security
Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Internationale
Zusammenarbeit
(GIZ) GmbH
Aled Williams
Senior Advisor
U4 Anti-Corruption
Resource Center
Register here.
Evidence, opportunities and challenges
The rapid progress in digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) comes with both fresh opportunities and new challenges for different sectors and actors adopting the new solutions that become available over time. Since the mid-2000s, the global land governance community has piloted a series of open data and transparency initiatives largely based on such digital innovations, aiming at increasing accountability and counteracting corruption in the land sector, both at the local and global level.
Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, and corrupt practices in the context of land administration and land management have come to be known as ‘land corruption.’ Unfortunately, land corruption is all too common, with one in every five people across the globe paying bribes to access land services.
Evidence, opportunities and challenges
This is the presentation of Dr. Marcello De Maria, Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of Agriculture Policy and Development at the University of Reading during the webinar on the Role of Open Data in the Fight against Land Corruption on January 28th, 2021.
The analysis revealed overwhelming support for the use of open data as an anticorruption tool in the land sector, but it also found strong evidence for the existence of a high degree of untapped potential.
Prindex Researcher Joseph Feyertag argues that corruption holds the key to unlocking tenure insecurity.
Opening up land-related administrative data, combining it with data from other sources and processing and making this data available as easily accessible information for women and men equally could be a means to counteracting land corruption in land management, land administration and land allocation. But does open data and enhanced data transparency indeed help to counteract land corruption?
The data revolution – characterised by the transition to big data, open data and new digital data infrastructures [1] – is projected to make an astonishing 44 billion terabytes of digital data and information available by the end of 2020 [2]. Despite this plethora of information now available to us, about 1 billion people in 140 countries still feel insecure about their land and property rights [3].
