The Corruption Perceptions Index 2019 reveals a staggering number of countries are showing little to no improvement in tackling corruption. Our analysis also suggests that reducing big money in politics and promoting inclusive political decision-making are essential to curb corruption. 180 The CPI scores 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, according to experts and business people.

Francisco Hidalgo[1]
 
¿Desde dónde analizar los resultados de las elecciones seccionales del 24 de marzo en el Ecuador?, mirarlos como una serie de acontecimientos con una lógica provincial o, pese a su ámbito seccional, desde una óptica desde las tendencias nacionales. Optamos en este artículo iniciar por lo segundo, y en un siguiente análisis abordaremos lo local.

This issue of Caravan showcases some of ICARDA’s efforts of coping with climate change in dry areas with improved water land management and resilient production systems. These include initiatives in conservation agriculture which provide sustained production levels while conserving the ecosystems on which our entire food system is dependent upon. ICARDA continues to make significant contributions in the promotion of sustainable water land management approaches and technologies devised by researchers and farmers.

In the context of China’s economic transformation, the consumption of mineral resources plays an important role in its economy’s sustainable development, and so improving mining efficiency is regarded as the basis of industrial development. However, in the pursuit of mine exploitation, the destruction of land resources has attracted greater attention by government and society, with many scholars focusing more on land rehabilitation in recent years.

The impacts of human activities on ecosystems are significantly increasing the rate of environmental change in the earth system, reshaping the global landscape. The rapid rate of environmental change is disrupting the ability of millions of people around the globe to live their everyday lives and maintain their human niche. Evidence suggests that we have entered (or created) a new epoch, the Anthropocene, which is defined as the period in which humans and human activities are the primary drivers of planetary change.

This research makes a highly relevant contribution to the scientific analysis of the mining landscape using the example of Cartagena-La Unión (Spain). The landscape is interpreted from a twin perspective: as a type of digital content offered to visitors and as a highly valuable scenic tourism resource. The article features an extensive bibliographical review and offers different perspectives on the relationship between landscape, tourism, and smart promotion. The method used is both qualitative and quantitative due to the presentation of statistical data.

We estimate how a shift towards a more extractive resource policy, brought about by a regulatory reform of the mining sector, affected civil conflict in the Philippines. Our empirical strategy uses a difference-in-differences approach that compares provinces with and without mineral deposits before and after the reform. We find that the reform led to a large increase in conflict violence, most likely due to increased competition over control of resource-rich areas.

The Panguna mine on the Pacific island of Bougainville is one of the largest copper and gold deposits in the world. 

The mine was also at the center of a decade-long civil war fought between the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and the Papua New Guinea Defense Force in the 1990s. The conflict cost as many as 15,000 lives and displaced 40,000 of the island’s 200,000 inhabitants.

In Big Men, director Rachel Boynton has achieved a tour-de-force of documentary filmmaking. Taking a large, complex and much-contested phenomenon -- the oil business as it is conducted in under-developed countries such as Ghana and Nigeria -- she has crafted an edge-of-your-seat, character-driven drama that is also a clear and enlightening film about the global dealings behind petroleum, a crucial resource that touches everyone's life.

On February 2, 2017, Philippine Environment Secretary Gina Lopez, who has the full backing of the country’s controversial president Duterte, announced the closure of 23 large-scale mining operations. Two weeks later, on February 14, she announced the cancellation of 75 large-scale mining contracts, as a 

As gold prices soared from 2008 onwards, tens of thousands of foreign miners, especially from China, entered the small-scale mining sector in Ghana, despite it being ‘reserved for Ghanaian citizens’ by law. A free-for-all ensued in which Ghanaian and Chinese miners engaged in both contestation and collaboration over access to gold, a situation described as ‘out of control’ and a ‘culture of impunity’. Where was the state? This paper addresses the question of how and why pervasive and illicit foreign involvement occurred without earlier state intervention.

Global demand for timber, agricultural commodities, and extractives is a significant driver of deforestation worldwide. Transparent land-concessions data for these large-scale commercial activities are essential to understand drivers of forest loss, monitor environmental impacts of ongoing activities, and ensure efficient and sustainable allocation of land.