Creating a public tool to assess and promote transparency in global land deals: the experience of the Land Matrix

Abstract

The Beta version of the Land Matrix (http://landportal.info/landmatrix) was launched in April 2012 as a tool to promote public participation in building a constantly evolving database on largescale land deals, and making the data visible and understandable. The aim of the Land Matrix partnership is to promote transparency and open data in decision-making over land and investment, as a step towards greater accountability. Since its launch, the Land Matrix has attracted a high degree of attention, and stirred some controversy. It provides valuable lessons on the challenges and benefits of promoting open data on practices that are often shrouded in secrecy. This paper critically examines the ongoing efforts by the Land Matrix partnership to build a public tool to promote greater transparency in decision-making over land and investment at a global level. It intends to provoke discussion of the extent to which such a tool can ultimately promote greater transparency and be a step towards greater accountability and improved decision-making. It will present the Land Matrix and its value addition, before detailing the challenges it encountered related to the measurement of the large-scale land acquisition phenomenon. It will then specify how it intends to address these issues in order to establish a dynamic and participatory tool for open development.The Land Matrix (LM) is a global, independent initiative for monitoring land deals. It is facilitated by a partnership of organizations 1 concerned by decision-making over largescale land deals, their implications for communities and the environment, and the fact that many directly affected stakeholders are currently excluded from such decisionmaking. The LM provides tools for widening citizen involvement in making data available and understandable, thus promoting transparency and accountability. It is ultimately an effort in improved decision-making over land resources and their use.

The politics of evidence: methodologies for understanding the global land rush

“…' (2013,) This sort of rigorous reflection has often been absent. Ward Anseeuw et al (2013,) reflect on this in respect of the Land Matrix:…”

“…With an explicit political agenda guiding what we choose to focus on and how we use the information, our aim is to gather the best and most useful information that can support responses by local communities and activist networks. (GRAIN 2013) Anseeuw et al (2013) describe the role of the Land Matrix partnership as being 'to promote transparency and open data in decision-making over land and investment, as a step towards greater accountability'. Their argument is that with greater transparency in data, and public sharing of the database, this will help inform the debate, and help hold those with more power -whether investors, national governments, financiers, or aid donors -to account.…”

European large-scale farmland investments and the land-water-energy-food nexus

“…This is due to the fact that, as anticipated in the introduction, the status of land deals is characterised by rapid changes, especially for what concerns intended deals and the intended production area. For these deals the data are less reliable because some negotiations could never materialise or projects could collapse ( Anseeuw et al, 2013 ).…”

“…In general, global-scale inventories of land deals are difficult to compile because the acquisition and development of agricultural land are a highly dynamic process and access to the data is often limited due to lack of openness in the agencies that record land transactions, concessions, titles, and licenses; moreover, data can have different degrees of reliability depending on the main source of information (i.e. media reports, policy reports, companies' information, official government records, international and non-governmental organizations and academics) ( Messerli et al, 2014;Schoneveld, 2014;Anseeuw et al, 2013 ). To overcome some of the above limitations the Land Matrix database distinguishes the different stages (concluded, intended, or failed) in the granting process and indicates data sources in order to provide a refined and more differentiated picture of the phenomenon ( Anseeuw et al, 2013 ).…”

“…media reports, policy reports, companies' information, official government records, international and non-governmental organizations and academics) ( Messerli et al, 2014;Schoneveld, 2014;Anseeuw et al, 2013 ). To overcome some of the above limitations the Land Matrix database distinguishes the different stages (concluded, intended, or failed) in the granting process and indicates data sources in order to provide a refined and more differentiated picture of the phenomenon ( Anseeuw et al, 2013 ). Thus, to avoid the inclusion of less reliable data, deals reported as incorrect or dubious and/or classified as failed (e.g.…”