Low-tech solutions are useful

Thomson Reuters Foundation

TECHNOLOGICAL solutions to preventing land corruption require resources, but they do not have to be expensive, land rights experts said on Tuesday.

Satellite imagery, cloud computing and blockchain are among technologies with the potential to help many of the world’s more than 1 billion people estimated to lack secure property rights.

But they can be expensive and require experts to be trained.

That’s where low-tech solutions such as Cadastre Registry Inventory Saving Paper (Crisp) can be useful, said Ketakandriana Rafitoson, executive director of global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) in Madagascar.

Crisp helps local activists in Madagascar, one of the world’s poorest countries, document land ownership using tablets with fingerprint readers and built-in cameras, which cost $20 (R290) a day to rent.

Users can take pictures of ID cards, location agreements, photos of landowners, their neighbours and any witnesses who were present during land demarcation, Rafitoson told the International Anti-Corruption Conference.

One challenge in Madagascar is a lack of trust in politicians, Rafitoson said, meaning it is better if local charities are involved too.

“If we just leave the land authorities with the community, it doesn’t work because they don’t trust each other,” she said.

Corruption in land management ranges from local officials demanding bribes for basic administrative duties to high-level political decisions being unduly influenced, according to TI.

The Dashboard, a tool developed by The International Land Coalition (ILC), is also putting local people at the centre of monitoring land deals, said Eva Hershaw, a data specialist at the ILC, a global alliance of non-profit organisations working on improving land governance.

The Dashboard is being trialled in Colombia, Nepal and Senegal, where it allows ILC’s local partners to collect data based on 30 core indicators, including monitoring legal frameworks and how laws are implemented.

Next week TI Zambia will launch a new phone-based platform, which can advise Zambians on various aspects of land acquisition.

Rueben Lifuka, president of TI Zambia, said users can also report corruption through the platform.