Impact Evaluation of Finnish Support to the Land Sector in Cambodia in 1997-2013

ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: During the Khmer Rouge regime all land records in Cambodia were destroyed. There was high instability in the country, refugees and IDPs all through the 1980s. During 1992-95 Finland had assisted Cambodia. It had been flying the whole Cambodia for production aerial photos so the basis for the start of land registration had been created. By 1997 Finland had designed the first project on land registration which lasted two years and was followed by a second - combined the two are called Cambodia Cadastral Project lasting till 2002. In these projects Finnmap - deployed as TA – trained the first 6 staff of the Land Titles Department through a ‘learning by doing’ process in just two districts. In 1999-2000 the MLMUPC was established and the learning created through these two projects along with a new ministry gave a strong impetus to the two subsequent much larger PBA programmes to land registration with the WB, GIZ and CIDA, namely the LMAP 2002-2009 and the LASSP (2009 – ongoing). From 6 staff there are now 1,600 staff and the LASSP covers the whole of Cambodia with 3.7 million titles registered through systematic and sporadic registration over the last decade, one quarter of Cambodia. It is difficult to estimate the total number of possible land parcels in Cambodia, excluding state lands. Originally the estimation was 6-7 million, but a more recent estimation was 10-12 million Finnish aid comprised grants and provision of TA. Over the full 16 years the Finnmap has been the consulting company deployed by the MFA to Cambodia. Evaluating the support by Finland is conditioned by a holistic PBA and the attribution is embedded in technical, socio-economic, environmental, political and cultural factors influencing results and the attribution of impact may often be non-linear.

Cambodia