This report takes a snapshot look at how urbanisation is impacting three of Cambodia's secondary cities – Sihanoukville, Battambang, and Siem Reap – and, in particular, their urban poor settlements. The report is based on desk review and field research. The report provides information on history, urban planning, urban poor settlements and interventions for each city.

Since 1990, over 29,700 Cambodian families have been evicted or displaced from their homes in Phnom Penh. This document provides a list of evicted communities, collating information on year, settlement name, description of the event and numbers of households affected. Includes maps of displaced communities and relocation sites. Available in Khmer and English.

The report of a 2013 survey conducted to update previous research on urban poor settlements in the Phnom Penh and produce current maps of their locations. This report summarises the data collected, and provides analysis and recommendations for key stakeholders intended to help lead to positive outcomes for the urban poor. The study found 340 urban poor settlements in Phnom Penh. The research shows that the trend of a decreasing percentage of settlements in the inner Khans and a corresponding increase in outer Khan settlements has continued.

This paper describes the interventions undertaken in the Doe Mao Salong watershed in an effort to restore the landscape and improve the livelihoods of local communities. Interventions included forming multi-stakeholder platforms to facilitate dialogue and to ensure participatory land-use planning; the creation of tree nurseries for forest rehabilitation; identifying products for sale in local markets; and a focus on action learning. Land-tenure arrangements proved key to these interventions. The report describes the impacts.

In the context of transition to a more open form of government, the Myanmar government has begun to liberalize land markets and, in 2012, enacted two major land-related laws. Implementing these new land laws has proven challenging, however, as it has been difficult to integrate these laws with the existing customary practices of various ethnic minorities. To address these and other issues UN-HABITAT Myanmar is assisting the Myanmar government in developing a Land Administration and Management Program (LAMP).

As shown in this report, harassment of local activists in Cambodia, including defenders of the right to housing, is widespread. Cambodia’s rich and powerful are increasingly abusing the criminal justice system to silence communities standing up against land concessions or business deals affecting the land they live on or cultivate. Many poor and marginalized communities are living in fear of the institutions created to protect them, in particular the police and the courts. As forced evictions increase, public space for discussing them is shrinking.

This document provides a comprehensive list of Phnom Penh settlements under formal or informal threat of eviction. Data are provided on stated reasons for eviction, location features, and other factors. Includes maps showing affected areas.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE CONCLUSION: LMAP has had considerable success in several areas, including the number of titles adjudicated in rural areas, development of legal framework for land management and administration, and the increased institutional capacity of the Ministry of Land. Unfortunately these successes are overshadowed by an increase in landlessness, forced evictions, land-grabbing and widespread tenure insecurity in Cambodia. In large part this is the result of a persistent lack of political will to consistently implement the legal framework that LMAP has developed.

"This study highlights lessons from recent policy, law and practice to improve and secure access to rural land for poorer groups. It focuses on Africa, Latin America and Asia, while also referring to experience from Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

During 2012, a key choice facing developing countries revealed itself ever more starkly. Would they choose a development path built on inclusiveness, respect for the rights of their citizens, and the rule of law? Or would they seek a short-cut to development and opt to hand over community land and natural resources to international investors and national elites? Would they turn their rural citizens from landowners into landless laborers?

This report provides select findings of an extensive survey of relocation sites in and around Phnom Penh, conducted in 2011 and 2012. The aim of the report is to highlight some key issues facing residents at existing relocation sites, and provide recommendations for both improving existing sites and improving future relocation practices, in cases when relocation is considered unavoidable. The report follows a previous 2007 report ‘Relocation sites in Phnom Penh’.

This report is a review of city’s development paradigm, including an examination of urban services and infrastructure, the regulatory framework, mobility networks, major stakeholders, and key issues in the city's development. The authors argue that Phnom Penh stands at a crossroads. Ahead is the continuation of a “planned” development of the city first developed by the French and then adopted by the Sihanouk regime. To either side is the new “unplanned” approach, a path that already seems to be the favored choice.