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.

This publication presents the first nationwide analysis of land concessions and leases in the Lao PDR. It comes at a pivotal moment after investment in land has expanded significantly throughout the country, sparking increased dialogue and a greater level of scrutiny regarding the impacts of this expan- sion, both inside the Government of the Lao PDR (GoL) and throughout wider civil society. Investment in land, particularly foreign direct investment, has been championed as an effective development tool by a number of actors.

Despite the many transformations taking place in Myanmar, its agricultural sector is lagging. A high proportion of rural households remain poor and food insecure as a result. This article examines the underlying causes of poor agricultural performance through a combination of literature and secondary data review combined with extensive field interviews with a broad range of key informants in the main agricultural zones of the country. We identify key structural changes that are needed to unleash smallholder-led agricultural transformation and broad-based rural economic growth.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE PREFACE: The origin of this report dates back to 2002, when the first Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) was carried out.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: This working paper is an examination of current land formalization processes against the backdrop of Cambodian history and the political economy of land and agrarian change. I... critique the land property right formalisation processes at play under the current land reforms. I present their rationales, mechanisms and influences on Cambodian peasants. I then detail the dynamics of land differentiation in the central rice plain and reveal how it has initiated a large migration to the peripheral uplands.

Taking water institutions as an illustrative context, this paper attempts a quantitative analysis of the structural and functional linkages within institutional structure and indicates their performance implications and strategic importance for promoting institutional reforms.

In many countries, water supply is a service that is seriously underpriced, especially for residential consumers. This has led to a call for setting cost recovery policies to ensure that the tariffs charged for water supply cover the full cost of service provision. Identification of factors driving piped and non-piped water demand is a necessary prerequisite for predicting how consumers will react to such price increases.

In the wake of reforms to establish a free market in land-use rights, Vietnam experienced a pronounced rise in rural landlessness. To some observers this is a harmless by-product of a more efficient economy, while to others it signals the return of the pre-socialist class structure, with the rural landless at the bottom of the economic ladder. We study the issue empirically using four household surveys spanning 1993-2004. Although we find rising landlessness amongst the poor, the post-reform landlessness rate tends to be higher for the non-poor.

We present the results of a framed field experiment with Ethiopian farmers that use the mountain rain forest as a common pool resource. Harvesting honey causes damage to the forest, and open access leads to over-harvesting. We test different mechanisms for mitigating excessive harvesting: a collective tax with low and high tax rates, and a tax/subsidy system. We find that the high-tax scheme works best in inducing the desired level of harvesting, while the tax-subsidy scheme may trigger tacit collusion.

The dramatic transition from Communism to market economies across Asia and Europe started in the Chinese countryside in the 1970s. Since then more than a billion of people, many of them very poor, have been affected by radical reforms in agriculture. However, there are enormous differences in the reform strategies that countries have chosen. This paper presents a set of arguments to explain why countries have chosen different reform policies.

We estimated a normalized translog yield-response model using African farm-household survey data to compare the yield of smallholder maize production under integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) and chemical-based soil fertility management. Controlling for other factors, maize yield responses were higher under ISFM. Results suggest ISFM practices would significantly improve the profitability of smallholder maize production, especially under escalating fertilizer prices.

With the disintegration of the USSR a conflict arose between Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan over the transboundary Syr Darya river. Upstream Kyrgyzstan controls the Toktogul reservoir which generates hydropower demanded mainly in winter for heating. Downstream Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan need irrigation water in summer, primarily to grow an export crop (cotton). Regional agreements obliging Kyrgyzstan to higher summer discharges in exchange for fossil fuel transfers from downstream riparians in winter have been unsuccessful, due to lack of trust between the parties.