Mapping corruption risks to address historical land injustices in Africa

In Sub-Saharan Africa, land remains a vital resource that sustains livelihoods. This means that land corruption – corruption in the management and administration of land – can have a detrimental impact, by hitting the poorest people the hardest, creating situations that deny people’s rights and damaging livelihoods. Transparency International has been working with governments, traditional authorities and civil society to find tools and solutions to combat this specific form of corruption.

Such solutions include land corruption risk mapping – the process of systematically identifying and analysing corruption vulnerabilities in land governance which can be used to help implement inclusive land reforms that strengthen transparency and accountability.

Whilst land corruption remains a global issue affecting one in five people around the world, in Africa, there are important historical factors at play. Colonial legacies still shape land governance throughout the continent, and systemic weaknesses within this governance drives corruption in the sector. As the continent seeks to address historical land injustices through initiatives like land restitution programmes and land redistribution schemes, it’s imperative to address corruption risks that might be inherent in such reparative justice undertakings.

Weak safeguards can allow those in power to pocket the benefits intended for marginalised communities. In the year 2000, Zimbabwe introduced the Fast Track Land Reform Programme, to address inequalities that existed in relation to land ownership, by transferring 20% of the land from commercial farmers to smallholder and medium scale farmers. However, the absence of a clear policy and legal framework to guide the process saw the programme criticised for a lack of transparency and accountability. This enabled it to become susceptible to corruption, where some elites used state power to prioritise their own interests at the expense of communities.

Similarly, in Madagascar, colonial legacies have resulted in centralised land power that excludes the rights of local communities. As a result, over 1.5 million hectares of land remain under unclear ownership.

These colonial-era grey zones continue to create space for administrative abuse, as the lack of traceability allows manipulation, favouritism and opaque decision-making to thrive. To address these challenges, strengthening corruption risk assessments is essential for securing community land rights and rebuilding transparency and trust in land governance.

In the context of addressing historical land injustices – such as those found in Zimbabwe and Madagascar – corruption risk mapping can be a crucial strategy to identify, understand and mitigate the systemic vulnerabilities that perpetuate corruption and subsequent injustices. Corruption risk mapping largely focuses on the future potential for – rather than the current existence or extent of – corruption. It calculates the likelihood that the risk will occur as well as the impact of the risk if it does occur. These pinpointed risks can then be used to inform how and where in the process of land redistribution and reparation should anti-corruption interventions be implemented, to ensure greater transparency and accountability.

This has been successfully demonstrated in Kenya – another country still dealing with the legacy of colonial land grabbing and the subsequent injustices that largely impact marginalised communities. Transparency International Kenya, alongside researchers from the Centre for Rural Development at Humboldt University, worked with local communities and civil society in several different land governance contexts within Kenya to implement corruption risk mapping and identify where weaknesses occurred and where opportunities for corruption were present.

By partnering with different stakeholders, including state and non-state actors, public schools and the community, Transparency International Kenya worked to safeguard the land in schools that was identified to be high risk due to a lack of proper ownership documents and titles. While the risks associated with land corruption are yet to be eliminated or reduced in all public schools, great progress was made with more than 1000 schools securing ownership titles.

The identification and mapping of potential corruption hotspots here therefore enabled transparent and accountable collaboration between local communities, civil society and officials to design and implement clear steps to protect land rights and begin dismantling colonial systems that allow corruption to flourish.

Land Corruption risk mapping is just one tool that can be used to help combat corruption in land governance. It is a positive step towards identifying and breaking down the systems that prevent the fair redistribution of and access to land and enable corruption to thrive. As land continues to hold power across the African continent, work to dismantle historical injustices can begin to path the way forward to a fairer and more equitable future.