This report 'Aggregated outcomes of the community consultation supporting the improvement of the draft amended Land Law' presents the main findings from the community consultation process and recommendations of amendments of the draft Land Law. It aims to share the needs of the people, especially disadvantaged groups such as small scale farmers, marginalized poor and ethnic minority women and men.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Burma has entered a pivotal stage in its political and economic development. The advent of a new quasi-civilian government has raised the prospect of fundamental reforms. This has sparked great investment interest among governments and the private sector in the region and beyond, to extract the country’s natural-resource wealth, and to develop large-scale infrastructure projects to establish strategic ‘corridors’ to connect Burma to the wider economic region.

The series of studies of which this is the overview are a contribution to the third year of this process. The aim of the studies has been to pull together in a simple form, updated information about large-scale land acquisitions in the region, with the aim of identifying trends, common threats, divergences and possible solutions. As well as summarising trends in investment, trade, crop development and land tenure arrangements, the studies focus on the land and forest tenure and human rights challenges.

This paper uses household panel data from rural Vietnam to explore the effects of having a relative in a position of political or bureaucratic power. Our results suggest that households increase their investment in land improvements due to such ties. Likely explanations are that connections to office holders strengthen de facto land property rights and access to both credit and transfers. Results also indicate that officials prefer to use informal rather than formal channels of redistribution to relatives.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) plays a leading role in the achievement of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1 – the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. The majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas and have labour and land as their only or main productive assets. Therefore, promoting secure access to and control and use of land as well as secure and productive employment and decent work for women and men in rural areas is vital to achieving MDG1.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Of the many challenging issues that will require resolution within the peace processes currently underway between the government of Myanmar and various ethnic groups in the country, few will be as complex, sensitive and yet vital than the issues comprising housing, land and property (HLP) rights.

A report revealing how Siamese rosewood has been illegally logged to the brink of extinction in the Mekong region to feed the demand for luxury hongmu furniture in China.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Burma has been praised in recent years for the return to a civilian government and for the implementation of legislative reforms; international economic sanctions are being lifted and President Thein Sein became the first Burmese politician to enter the White House since 1966. However, this common picture does not reveal the depth and complexity of the current situation in Burma. Now is a crucial time.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE GENERAL COMMENTS SECTION: The RGC in its combined 2010 Fourth and Fifth National Report (the ―RGC Report‖) on the Implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in Cambodia, makes specific reference to provisions in the Constitution and the Penal Code 1, claiming that the existence of these provisions in and of themselves, alongside plans to pass additional laws, guarantees full equality of women with men in the protection and enjoyment of human rights, as well as protection from all forms of discrimination.

SUMMARY: The Vietnamese government has made some progress towards tackling illegal logging and the associated trade. It has negotiated a voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) with the EU, a process that has prompted a review of relevant legislation and improved the government’s engagement with civil society. In addition, it has signed agreements with Lao PDR and Cambodia in which it has committed to coordination on forest management and trade. However, there has been little progress in policy reform, and there is still no legislation regulating illegal timber imports.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This report is an independent assessment of human rights issues related to the German-Cambodian Land Rights Program (LRP), which began in March 2011. The assessment was neither tasked to evaluate the impact of German predecessor programs in the land sector nor to undertake a legal assessment of the LRP’s sphere of influence and thus does not do so. The assessment aims to gain insights which can be used for management decisions by the BMZ as well as for a possible next phase of the LRP (03/2013- 02/2016).

ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This Report analyses Cambodia’s development dynamism over the last two decades and identifies emerging development priorities for the next two. It examines Cambodia’s past performance, emerging priorities and future challenges in economic, social, environmental and political spheres. One of the distinguishing features of this Report is that it examines Cambodia’s past performance and emerging development priorities within a multi-country comparative perspective.