What does the illegal timber trade have to do with peacebuilding and how can conflict sensitive land governance have an impact on both? CDA Senior Associate in Land and Security Maureen Moriarty, has spent the last 3 years exploring this nexus. Against the backdrop of ongoing violence, described as an Islamist insurgency, in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, Maureen has sought to move beyond the current narrative and, through CDA, provide practical tools for local solutions.

In “Measures to prevent the misuse of funds intended for peacebuilding: Financial Corruption and Illicit Financial Flows” (In à propos N°181 Financing Peace – What Are the Priorities?), Maureen first explores Mozambique’s Hidden Debts Scandal as a prime example of how financial corruption can plunge a country more deeply into poverty and fragility. The Hidden Debts Scandal was provoked by political conflict, a culture of impunity, fiscal and economic crises, public sector debt, and corruption. Serious impacts are projected to continue, including weaker governance, weaker institutions, less democracy, more political conflict, and flight of public investment, all leading to greater poverty. In other words, corruption in general and financial corruption specifically fuel a mutually reinforcing vulnerability to conflict and weaken prospects for peace.

Analysis of the impacts of the Scandal is playing out in real time in the land and natural resources sectors and the deepening of political violence in the country’s resource and forest rich Cabo Delgado. In Maureen’s multi-year investigation, released in May 2024 with the Environmental Investigation Agency, Shipping the Forest reveals that laundering of conflict timber is made possible due to systemic corruption and illicit financial flows in the timber sector. Weak forest, land, and natural resource rights combined with a lack of political will to enforce forest law and policy due in part to corruption and transnational organized crime enabled by corruption, are revealed as a root cause of conflict timber.

Crucially, national resources, through royalties paid by concession owners, are needed to fund peace in the province. However, forest corruption, combined with the opacity in the timber supply chain, is an example of one sector that has both drained the country of the financial resources to achieve  peacebuilding while also fueling the conflict in Cabo Delgado.

So, what can be done?

The work conducted by SOAS-ACE (Anti-Corruption Evidence), Mushtaq Khan, and Pallavi Roy revolves around the serious consideration of the contextual landscape of power, interests, and potential leverage points for effective action. Their approach fosters the successful implementation of practical anti-corruption action at the appropriate level(s)or sector(s) by, with, and through citizens in partnership with government and state institutions. These actions and solutions must involve many actors working on many dimensions of conflict and peace, including institution building, infrastructure, humanitarian, land, and governance, to name a few. 

Ancuabe district in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. Credit: Ton Rulkens, 2011

Enter CDA and Conflict Sensitivity in Land Governance. This innovative tool was designed by CDA and partner Tetra Tech in recognition that the relationship between land and conflict in complex contexts, such as Cabo Delgado, requires local knowledge – and local solutions.  It is a hands-on resource designed for land and natural resource practitioners, as well as humanitarian, peacebuilding, and other sectoral actors planning for and implementing land and resource governance related efforts, including curbing wildlife and timber trafficking wherever communities experience fragility and conflict.

Users will find guidance to better understand conflict dynamics specific to issues of land so that activities expand conditions for peace and avoid exacerbating underlying social tensions and conflicts. Private sector, multilateral, and governmental entities will also benefit as they design conflict sensitive funding opportunities, support new initiatives or new forms of partnership, and adapt to complex and rapidly changing contexts.

As Mozambique moves to curb the illicit wildlife trade and the accompanying illicit financial flows that drain the country of much needed funds to support peacebuilding, CDA’s tool offers 5 Key Principles of Conflict Sensitive Land and Natural Resource Governance:

1. Maximize land’s potential as a connector for peace and minimize harm
2. Integrate the interests, perspectives, needs, and values of women and marginalized populations
3. Apply a human rights and conservation-based lens to land and natural resource governance
4. Recognize the interplay between land and natural resources, corruption, political violence, and peacebuilding priorities
5. Require respectful, accountable, fair, and transparent attitudes, actions, and behaviors

About the author

Maureen Moriarty, PhD has 25 years of experience in international development and currently serves as a Lecturing Fellow at Duke University’s Center for International Development and the Duke/UNC Rotary Peace Program.

Her specializations include land and resource governance and conflict sensitivity. As a practitioner she has worked in Russia, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Haiti, Liberia, Mozambique, Thailand, Myanmar, Kosovo, Tanzania, Somalia, Burundi, and Kenya, among others. Maureen’s recent research and practice focuses on corruption at the intersection of land, human security, transnational organized crime, resource governance, and associated financial crimes. She is the co-author of a JTIP funded 2 year study in Mozambique examining the links between high level corruption, illicit forest activity, and vulnerability to forced labor and human trafficking.

She is a US delegate to the European Forum on Urban Security Working Group on the Roots and Impacts of Transnational Organized Crime, holds a certificate in AML/CFT, and recently received her CAMS Certification (Certified Anti Money Laundering Specialist) with specializations in Anti-Corruption, Bribery, and Investigations.