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The purpose of the Mekong Land Research Forum online site is to provide structured access to published and unpublished research on land issues in the Mekong Region. It is based on the premise that debates and decisions around land governance can be enhanced by drawing on the considerable volume of research, documented experience and action-based reflection that is available. The online site seeks to organise the combined work of many researchers, practitioners and policy advocates around key themes relevant to the land security, and hence well-being, of smallholders in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The research material on this site is mounted at three levels:
First, a selection of journal articles, reports and other materials is provided and organised thematically to assist researchers, practitioners and policy advocates to draw on one another’s work and hence build up a collective body of knowledge. This is the most “passive” presentation of the research material; our contribution is to find and select the most relevant material and to organise it into key themes. In some cases the entire article is available. In others, for copyright reasons, only an abstract or summary is available and users will need to access documents through the relevant journal or organisation.
Second, a sub-set of the articles has been annotated, with overall commentary on the significance of the article and the research on which it is based, plus commentary relevant to each of the key themes addressed by the article.
Third, the findings and key messages of the annotated articles are synthesised into summaries of each of fourteen key themes. For each key theme, there is a one-page overall summary. Extended summaries are being developed progressively for each theme as part of the Forum's ongoing activity.
Overall, we intend that this online site will contribute toward evidence-based progressive policy reform in the key area of land governance. We further hope that it will thereby contribute toward to the well-being of the rural poor, ethnic minorities and women in particular, who face disadvantage in making a living as a result of insecure land tenure.
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Resources
Displaying 461 - 465 of 564Land Grabbing & Poverty in Cambodia: The Myth of Development
ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: There is little evidence... that ordinary Cambodians are benefiting from the mass confiscation of their land. On the contrary, those who are displaced are explicitly excluded from any benefits, and instead find themselves facing loss of income, poor health, lack of education and other dire consequences that are directly opposed to the government’s public commitment to development, expressed through targets such as the “Millennium Development Goals” (MDG).
FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to Myanmar - Special Report.
ABSTRACTED FROM THE OVERVIEW: At the request of the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation of Myanmar (MOAI), a joint FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission (CFSAM)) team visited the country from 5 October to 4 November 2008. The main objective of the Mission was to analyze the food supply situation for the forthcoming year at the national and subnational levels (particularly in Cyclone Nargis-affected areas) and estimate food and agricultural assistance needs.
Industrialization and Urbanization in Vietnam: How Appropriation of Agricultural Land Use Rights Transformed Farmers’ Livelihoods in a Peri-Urban Hanoi Village
ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: Since đổi mới, Vietnam witnesses a rapid urbanization and industrialization, which leads to conversions of a large area of agricultural land and other types of land, and this has forced thousands of farmer households to change their traditional livelihoods and even their lives. Using the lens of a sustainable livelihoods framework, this study analyzes and explains the questions of how, in what ways and to what extent agricultural land conversions have been affecting farmer livelihoods in one peri-urban Hanoi village.
Concession or cooperation? Impacts of recent rubber investment on land tenure and livelihoods: A case study from Oudomxai Province, Lao PDR
The research team set out to answer three research questions: 1) What are rubber investment’s key features with regard to the investment process, investor identity, location, activities and scale? 2) How was the “upland” landscape originally zoned and mapped as part of the LFA process, and later re-zoned and mapped by local authorities and foreign investors? 3) What are the impacts of rubber investment in upland areas on the land use and livelihoods of the villagers involved?
Land-Tenure Policy Reforms Decollectivization and the Doi Moi System in Vietnam
Vietnamese land-tenure policy reforms were embedded into general economic reforms (Doi Moi), enabling the country’s transition toward a market economy. Since 1998, they were implemented incrementally together with complementary instruments such as agricultural market liberalization and new economic incentives. Major steps included disentangling socialist producer cooperatives and assigning land-use rights to its former members, developing and adapting a national legal framework (Land Law), and enhancing tenure security through gender-balanced inheritable land-use certificates.