News on Land

Cambodia’s government has strenuously promoted long-term leasing of unused land as Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) to attract investors and encourage development in the impoverished nation, but observers say the policy has resulted in few benefits at the cost of huge social and environmental impacts.

Kampong Speu provincial police and NGO ACNCIPO director Chea Hean stopped nearly 100 people from grabbing more than 200ha illegally in the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary on Wednesday.

The incident occurred at the Trapaing Thmea village in Oral district.

Hean said on Wednesday the people intended to claim the area for private ownership and prepared to build sheds and clear forest land to grow crops. Authorities intervened and the 100 or so families protested.

He said they eventually listened to instructions and returned to their respective homes.

Mbabane: The Human Rights and Governance Consortium under CANGO has called for the amendment of the laws governing the land tenure system to confer security of land ownership and protect communities from unlawful evictions.

This follows the recent evictions which took place at Mangwaneni in Mbabane on August 24, 2020.

(Business in Cameroon) - On August 14, 2020, Ousmanou Biri, the regional president of the association for the cultural development of Cameroonian Mbororos - a community of sheep-breeding nomads well known in Cameroon- sent correspondence to the Minister of Land Affairs  Henri Eyébé Ayissi. In his correspondence, Ousmanou Biri denounced the temporary concession of 100,000 hectares of land in Tignère (department of Faro et Déo) to an investor who wants to use the lands for a livestock project.

Kep provincial police said they have identified a group who used the replacement Khmer New Year holiday to encroach on 4ha of flooded mangrove forests.

Police took down tow sheds measuring 18sqm and removed 100 stone poles used to mark land boundaries in an area inhabited by a community of fishermen in Angkorl village, in Damnak Changaur district’s Angkorl commune.

Provincial administration spokesman Ros Udong told The Post on Monday that having received information on the case, Kep provincial governor Som Piseth instructed officials to inspect the location.

Residents in Namibia’s capital Windhoek are tapping into new techniques to grow food, overcoming food insecurity amid the biting COVID-19 pandemic.

In the heart of the bustling informal settlement of Goreangab, 42 -year-old Lucky Matunge is breaking new ground and growing vegetables in sacks that are filled with manure, sand and stones right at the back of her rental apartment.

(Main photo: a surveyor sits on a construction site in Ningbo, China, on April 26, 2020. Local governments have long offered firms connected to China’s political elite land sale discounts. Photo: Bloomberg)

• Gulzhan Musaeva, an independent financial analyst writes about CIMB’s sustainability commitments. CIMB is Malaysia’s second largest bank and a major leader to regional plantation companies.
• Musaeva argues that CIMB’s reluctance to address the issues associated with forest sector borrowers head-on casts doubt on its sustainability aspirations.
• “This means that, despite massive exposure to forest-risk sectors,” writes Musaeva, “CIMB, among other Malaysian banks, willfully overlooks its impact on SDG 15 ‘Life on Land’ through financing activities.

Prime Minister James Marape said in the last 40 years, the government revenue collection through cash payments has been riddled with corruption, nepotism, and mishandling of revenue and that will be changed. He said this when launching the GoLands and eLands online payment system for the Department of Lands in Port Moresby yesterday. 

“We will be migrating to the online payment system with every department that deals with revenue collection and I am happy that the Lands Department has stepped out as the rst to moving into that space and policy vision,” he said.

The Otavi Town Council has vowed to fast track the allocation of plots after a number of residents complained they are yet to be presented with proof of ownership despite paying for the land almost a year ago. 
Mayor George Garab said the local authority will act with urgency to resolve the issue to allow residents to construct their homes. 
Garab attributed the delay to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resignation of former council CEO Moses Matyayi. 

The Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security, Edwin Dikoloti last week told Parliament that Botswana is making strides in living the Malabo Declaration.
Dikoloti was responding to a question from Member of Parliament for Jwaneng-Mabutsane, Mephato Reatile who had asked the Minister when government would sign the Malabo Declaration.

The Declaration is a set of concrete agriculture goals to be attained by 2025 that was adopted at the African Union (AU) Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in June 2014 by Heads of State and Government.

According to a 2017 research paper titled “An Assessment of Public-Private Partnerships in Land Servicing and Housing Delivery”, the pressure on municipal and central governments to allocate adequate attention and finance to house urban populations, especially the poor has been on the rise.