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The purpose of the Mekong Land Research Forum online site is to provide structured access to published and unpublished research on land issues in the Mekong Region.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 411 - 415 of 564The Cambodian Land Market: Development, Aberrations, and Perspectives
In its Land Administration, Management and Distribution Program, the Royal Government of Cambodia proclaimed measures to strengthen the Cambodian land markets and tenure security. However, in the past, the country’s land markets suffered severe aberrations caused by price hikes. This affected both urban and rural areas, mainly due to a rollout of urban capital.
Dispossesion, semi-proletarianization and enclosure: primitive accumulation and the land grab in Laos
ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: In April 2008, the Vietnamese corporation Hoàng Anh Gia Lai Joint (HAGL) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Laos (GoL) agreeing to finance the construction of a $19 million athletes’ village. HAGL financed this property complex in support of the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, a biennial regional sporting event that the GoL was hosting for the first time from December 9th to 18th, 2009, in the capital of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Vientiane.
What shall we do without our land? Land Grabs and Resistance in Rural Cambodia
Political dynamics of the global land grab are exemplified in Cambodia, where at least 27 forced evictions took place in 2009, affecting 23,000 people. Evictions of the rural poor are legitimized by the assumption that non-private land is idle, marginal, or degraded and available for capitalist exploitation. This paper: (1) questions the assumption that land is idle; (2) explores whether land grabs can be regulated through a ‘code of conduct’; and (3) examines peasant resistance to land grabs.
“PLUP FICTION”: Landscape Simulation for Participatory Land Use Planning in Northern Lao PDR
A landscape simulation was designed and tested in Viengkham, a mountainous district in the north of Lao PDR. This social learning process was introduced by researchers affiliated with national research institutions to improve land use planning practices and increase the ownership of local people in the planning process. Twelve members of the village land management committees participated in the role play called PLUP Fiction, which is part of a stepwise process of participatory land use planning (PLUP).
Cambodia’s Agricultural Strategy: Future Development Options for the Rice Sector - A Policy Discussion Paper
ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This paper focuses on the role of the rice sector in Cambodian agriculture strategy. The paper first reviews the performance of the rice sector in Cambodian agriculture and rice-related government policies and interventions, and it then identifies potential and constraints for future development of the rice sector.