In many countries, unidentified private individuals and legal entities obtain significant economic benefits from land. This lack of transparency can make it harder for affected communities and governments to hold them accountable for land use decision-making and any sort of violation they commit. It can also leave investors open to risk if they do not know who is truly behind a company they are doing business with. 

Building on a methodology used to investigate beneficial ownership of legal entities for the purposes of fighting tax evasion, money laundering and corruption, this publication proposes a research framework for assessing a country’s regulation of beneficial ownership in large-scale land holdings.