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The purpose of the Mekong Land Research Forum online site is to provide structured access to published and unpublished research on land issues in the Mekong Region.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 506 - 510 of 564Cambodia Human Development Report 2007: Expanding Choices for Rural People
Although Cambodia has made significant progress in improving human well-being, poverty in rural areas persists. This Human Development Report for Cambodia assesses the state of rural livelihoods and their relationship with natural resources. It describes the status of human development at the regional and provincial levels, and distinguishes high performance areas from those which require more attention.
The Report of Land and Human Development in Cambodia
The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to describe the legal and institutional framework governing land in Cambodia, as well as the current status of land ownership and use; (2) to estimate the impact of access to land on human development and the potential benefits from land reforms; and (3) to discuss implications for land polices and challenges for implementing land reforms.
North versus South: the impact of social norms in the market pricing of private property rights in Vietnam
SUMMARY: Despite a centralized political system, nation-wide legal reforms, and similar high housing demand pressures, property rights have evolved differently in Vietnam’s two leading cities Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City during the transition period. Using ethnographic fieldwork and a hedonic price model, the study shows that the two land and housing markets price tenure ambiguity differently. The different price structures indicate the importance of norms, as socially constructed by local political interests and culture, in the efficacy of land title regularization programs.
Participatory Poverty Assessment II
This participatory poverty assessment (PPA 2006) comprises one component of ADB’s Technical Assistance to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic for Institutional Strengthening for Poverty Monitoring and Evaluation. The goal of this PPA, as with the first PPA in 2000, is to complement the statistical analyses of poverty in a meaningful way and to record the experiences and concerns of the poor in order to initiate and identify more effective forms of public and private actions to alleviate poverty.
Land and Natural Resource Alienation in Cambodia Land Tenure and Ownership
Land is the repository of memory and keeps traces of the past in the absence of a strong written tradition. It is perceived as an open book from which anyone can read and learn about local history: place names, old roads, legends and stories attached to places. For local people, bulldozing the landscape is seen as erasing their history, and disturbing social organisations and traditions. In Cambodia--as in many other countries--land is an extremely important economic resource and asset. Land is livelihood.