Uneven Developments: Toward Inclusive Land Governance in Contemporary Cambodia IDS WORKING PAPER (original) (raw)
Related papers
Competing Frameworks and Perspectives on Land Property in Cambodia
2013
This paper discusses Cambodia's legal framework relating to Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) and looks at the implementation gaps. It argues that despite Cambodian's legal framework governing land and ELCs being well-developed, its social benefits, such as protecting the rights of the poor and vulnerable and contributing to transparency and accountability, are almost non-existent. Recent evidence suggests that the Government's handling of natural resources is a far cry from its official land policy which is "to administer, manage, use and distribute land in an equitable, transparent, efficient, and sustainable manner". This paper argues that this is due to (1) a large gap between the country's legal framework and the implementation of the country's land concession policies and (2) a complete disregard of the country's customary land rights. It will explain that the current political environment benefits the exploitation of the country´s natural resources. Widespread corruption and nepotism encourages growing inequality in land ownership and a significant power imbalance between small groups of powerful, politically and economically well-connected elites and poor and vulnerable people in Cambodia. This is exacerbated by the lack of implementation of appropriate regulations. This elite exercises control over the judiciary and has created a climate of impunity, thus hindering the overall implementation of the legal framework and serving their own interests. The paper will further look into recent Government actions such as the moratorium on ELCs and a new land titling initiative and assess whether these actions have the potential to reverse or perpetuate the current inequality in land holdings. I.
A The Politics and Ethics of Land Concessions in Rural Cambodia
In rural Cambodia the rampant allocation of state land to political elites and foreign investors in the form of ''Economic Land Concessions (ELCs)''estimated to cover an area equivalent to more than 50 % of the country's arable land-has been associated with encroachment on farmland, community forests and indigenous territories and has contributed to a rapid increase of rural landlessness. By contrast, less than 7,000 ha of land have been allotted to land-poor and landless farmers under the pilot project for ''Social Land Concessions (SLCs)'' supported by various donor agencies. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in two research sites in Kratie Province, this article sheds light on the mechanisms and discourses surrounding the allocation of ELCs and SLCs. Our findings suggest that large-scale and non-transparent land leases in the form of ELCs are discursively justified as land policy measures supporting national development, creating employment opportunities in rural areas, and restoring ''degraded'' and ''non-use'' land, while SLCs are presented by the government and its international donors as a complementary policy to reduce landlessness, alleviate rural poverty, and ensure a more equitable land distribution. We argue that the SLC pilot project is a deliberate strategy deployed by the Cambodian ruling elite to instrumentalize international aid agencies in formalizing displacement and distributional injustices, in smoothing the adverse social A. Neef (&) impacts of their very own land policies and in minimizing resistance by dispossessed rural people.
The Politics and Ethics of Land Concessions in Rural Cambodia
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2013
In rural Cambodia the rampant allocation of state land to political elites and foreign investors in the form of ''Economic Land Concessions (ELCs)''estimated to cover an area equivalent to more than 50 % of the country's arable land-has been associated with encroachment on farmland, community forests and indigenous territories and has contributed to a rapid increase of rural landlessness. By contrast, less than 7,000 ha of land have been allotted to land-poor and landless farmers under the pilot project for ''Social Land Concessions (SLCs)'' supported by various donor agencies. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in two research sites in Kratie Province, this article sheds light on the mechanisms and discourses surrounding the allocation of ELCs and SLCs. Our findings suggest that large-scale and non-transparent land leases in the form of ELCs are discursively justified as land policy measures supporting national development, creating employment opportunities in rural areas, and restoring ''degraded'' and ''non-use'' land, while SLCs are presented by the government and its international donors as a complementary policy to reduce landlessness, alleviate rural poverty, and ensure a more equitable land distribution. We argue that the SLC pilot project is a deliberate strategy deployed by the Cambodian ruling elite to instrumentalize international aid agencies in formalizing displacement and distributional injustices, in smoothing the adverse social
In a widely read paper, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, World Bank and others propose systematic property rights formalization as a key step in addressing the problems of irresponsible agricultural investment. This paper examines the case of Cambodia, one of a number of countries where systematic land titling and large-scale land concessions have proceeded in parallel in recent years. Cambodia’s experience exemplifies the challenges of the ‘formalization fix’ – the proposition that property formalization constitutes a preferable front-line defense against land grabbing – and highlights formalization’s uneven geography as an issue that has yet to generate adequate discussion internationally. Three dimensions of Cambodia’s less-than-successful formalization fix efforts stand out: (1) the spatial separation of systematic land titling and agribusiness concessions that emerged during the 2000s and has only recently begun to be addressed; (2) the deployment of property formalization as a means of land grabbing, especially when applied selectively and unevenly; and (3) the political arena of efforts to legitimize ‘state land’. The paper questions the formalization fix as a policy solution, and argues for both greater spatial transparency in property formalization efforts throughout the global South, and greater attention to the problem of unmapped state land in general.
Cambodia has become a principal target of transnational (and domestic) land grabs over the past decade, mostly in the form of economic land concessions (ELCs). The northeastern part of the country—where the majority of Cambodia's indigenous people reside—is a particular hotspot. In this article, we discuss three policy mechanisms that the Cambodian government has employed to extend and legitimize land exclusions in the name of national economic development through the example of two indigenous villages in Srae Preah Commune, Mondulkiri Province. First, we show how the allocation of two ELCs has deprived indigenous communities of their communally managed land. Second, we examine how communal land titling processes have failed to provide indigenous villagers with effective legal mechanisms to counteract ELCs and land encroachment by internal migrants. Third, we elucidate how the promotion of cash crop production contributed to livelihood and land use transitions from a reliance on forest resources in 2003 to a dependence on cash crops in 2012 to a struggle to remain resilient amid a slump in crop prices in 2018. We conclude that the combination of these policies has undermined communal ownership and livelihood resilience under a situation of limited exit strategies.
The formalization fix? Land titling and land concessions in Cambodia
2015
Issuing land titles to smallholder farmers has long been embraced as a way to promote lending and land markets, but is increasingly being reframed as a way to protect smallholders from irresponsible agricultural investment. This brief examines the case of Cambodia, where over the last decade extensive land titling efforts have occurred alongside a wave of large-scale land concessions. The problem, however, is that titling has failed to live up to the rhetoric of systematic coverage, and has often focused on areas where tenure was already relatively secure. Areas outside the titling zone, in contrast, have become formalized de facto through the process of granting land concessions to investors. This undermines pro-poor development significantly.
From Force to Legitimation: Rethinking Land Grabs in Cambodia
Development and Change, 2017
This article moves beyond a focus on the brute force involved in high-profile land grabs to examine the way legitimation, regulation and coercion intersect in Cambodia's property regime. It builds on the 'powers of exclusion' framework developed by Hall, Hirsch and Li to argue that increased connections within civil society in Cambodia and engagement with Western commodity markets have motivated state and private concessionaires to use different means of land exclusion, with less outright force and a greater focus on repressive regulation and legitimation. These exclusionary powers work through informal political connections, secrecy and obfuscation, which the authors term the 'power of informality'. This argument is substantiated with two case studies that illustrate a move away from the dominant narrative of forceful expulsion of land users in Economic Land Concessions (ELC) towards approaches that provide in-kind compensation and carve out land for smallholders: a recent land titling campaign in ELC areas, and the first oil palm ELC to gain responsible investment certification. While the authors remain cautious of the implications of this shift, given the persistence of the power of informality, these cases illustrate the potential for new forms of state-society relations: a shift from fear of authorities to a demand for greater accountability and responsiveness. We would like to thank the editors of Development and Change and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. We are also grateful to Duncan McCargo, Steve Heder, Judy Ledgerwood and Tim Kelsall for reading drafts of this article, and to Timothy Gorman and Wendy Wolford for helping to develop our reading of Hall, Hirsch and Li. Alice Beban acknowledges financial support from the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship.
Land Use Policy, 2014
Forceful evictions have become a serious problem in Cambodia with an increasing number of families being deprived of their land, homes and livelihoods without compensation. This article analyses Cambodian land rights in the context of economic development theory. It assesses whether increasing economic inequalities, stemming from forceful evictions, can be categorized as an impediment to Cambodian economic growth. The Cambodian case illustrates that a lack of good governance due to corruption leads to the unequal distribution of land which, in turn, causes inequitable economic development. The paper concludes that Cambodia is trapped in a vicious cycle of inequality, which is upheld by elites who benefit from evictions and land concessions while evictees become trapped in poverty. Given that the population is growing angrier, the article warns of potential for a violent revolution that could have disastrous consequences for the Cambodian kingdom, a country that recently emerged from years of civil conflicts and is still in the process of rebuilding its social fabric. (H. Azadi). 1 The word "land grab" is often associated with a neo-colonial apprehension of land in developing countries by rich nations in the wake of rising food prices and a race to secure land for agricultural purposes (Robertson and Pinstrup-Andresen, 2010).