Commune-Based Land Allocation for Poverty Reduction in Cambodia

TitleCommune-Based Land Allocation for Poverty Reduction in Cambodia
Annotated RecordAnnotated
Year of Publication2012
AuthorsMuller F-V
Pagination1-23
Key themesDistribution, Formalisation-titling, MarginalisedPeople, Policy-law
Abstract

Land distribution to the poor is discussed in the broader context of the Cambodian land reform which is considered to follow a liberal approach based on the re-introduction of private property rights in land following Cambodia’s socialist period. This approach has produced good results for providing private land titles for existing land use on state private land but has turned out to be quantitatively ineffective in the distribution of state public land for the poor through social land concessions. Experiences from the ongoing donor-funded project on land allocation for economic and social development (LASED) show the necessity for a more complex political, legal and spatially-planned approach and for a mix of new instruments that include the regularisation of unauthorised land use by the poor and partnerships between big and small holders.
Availability

Contact author
Countries

Cambodia
Document Type

Report

Annotations

Overall relevance: 

This paper examines some of the challenges and opportunities of land reform for poverty reduction in Cambodia from the perspective of international donors. The paper gives an insight to why land distribution for the poor through social land concessions has largely failed in Cambodia. It also draws attention, though perhaps inadvertently, to how donors respond to setbacks to the reforms they initiate by introducing ever more complex legal and political instruments. The article highlights the unexhausted capacity for regulatory innovation within the Cambodian legal system, but it also calls into question the expectations among donors of continuous, forward or upward movement in the condition of a nation’s laws and institutions.

Key Themes: 
  • Land rights recognition/formalization/titling/collective tenure - In Cambodia, land reforms have made significant progress in formalising land rights of the rural poor through the issuing of titles for the state private land already used. Systematic land registration has enabled de facto use of state private land to be legally transformed and formalised as de jure private ownership of agricultural and residential parcels, providing land tenure security a large number of Cambodians in the rural lowlands. However, systematic land registration has not been able to resolve conflicts on and around state public land, which is mainly in the peripheral highlands. As a result, these areas have often been excluded from registration and farmers have lost their lands to concessions and other encroachers.
  • Land distribution: concentration/dispersion, landlessness - State land for distribution in Cambodia has been extremely unequal, with the vast majority of state public land distributed to a small number of domestic and foreign companies in the form of large-scale economic land concessions, and a very small portion of land going to rural poor households as social land concessions.
  • Marginalized people's land rights and access: ethnic minorities, poor and women - The introduction of land markets as part of neoliberal reforms has not safeguarded the interests of the poor. State public land is mostly in the upland areas, where most of the indigenous communities have historically resided. This land has largely remained untitled, leaving these areas open to encroachment. The donor-supported program to distribute land to the landless and land-poor in Cambodia has not been a success. Even when land has been legally allocated to the poor through the social land concession system, the lengthy process has left the land open to encroachment. Moreover, poor households that have been able to obtain land have had no capital to invest in land clearing, preparation and farming.
  • Land policy and land law - The paper attributes Cambodia’s land distribution failure to two main factors. The first is insufficient implementation of the rule of law. For example, government officials have not always followed regulations with regard to granting economic land concessions. Local authorities have also had difficulties implementing the rule of law for allocating social land concessions as individuals and state institutions have encroached on the land. The second factor is inadequate policies, legal regulations and instruments. The paper lists a number of new legal instruments, which donors are trying to implement in order to regularise poor encroachers, avoid exclusions from the systematic land registration process, and build partnerships between economic land concessions and smallholder farmers.
Research basis: 

The paper discusses experiences of the Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development (LASED) program, funded by GIZ and the World Bank, from the perspective of someone closely involved in its implementation.