Publication:
Mapping Indigenous Communal Lands : A Review of the Literature from a Cambodian Perspective

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1.1 MB)
487 downloads
English Text (23.05 KB)
98 downloads
Published
2009-10
ISSN
Date
2012-08-13
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Cambodian Land Law (2001) provides indigenous ethnic minority groups with a right to register their traditional residential and agricultural lands under communal title. To date, however, this right has remained unrealized. While the government has been working on a pilot registration process in three villages and drafting implementing regulations under the land law, Cambodia's once remote highlands have become increasingly exposed to the forces of state and market. The result: indigenous communities are being transformed; livelihoods change; and land is subject to deforestation, sales and grants of government concessions for mining and agribusiness. The Royal Government has included in its policy documents a commitment to the 'interim protection' of indigenous lands prior to registration; however, to progress on this front has been limited. The review of the literature contained in this note is adapted from a study examining the potential of community mapping to serve as an interim protective measure.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Adler, Daniel; Ironside, Jeremy; Ratanak, Mean. 2009. Mapping Indigenous Communal Lands : A Review of the Literature from a Cambodian Perspective. Justice for the Poor Briefing Note; Volume 3, Issue No. 2. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10968 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Land Tenure for Social and Economic Inclusion in Yemen : Issues and Opportunities
    (Washington, DC, 2009-12-01) World Bank
    The report, Land Tenure for Social and Economic Inclusion in Yemen: Issues and Opportunities was completed in December 2009. The report addresses the problems of land ownership in Yemen and the various social and economic problems associated with the system of land ownership. Property rights under Yemeni Law are expressed both in custom and statute, but both are informed by shari a (Islamic law), which provides the basic property categories for land in Yemen. There are unfortunately no reliable official statistics for the amount of land within these categories, or how much arable land (a small percentage of total land area) falls within each. It is clear however that certain groups suffer from disadvantages in accessing land and land rights. Daughters are disadvantaged by shari a rules which limit their inheritance shares to only half that of a son. Youth, unable to inherit until the demise of their parents and lacking the capital to buy land, lack access to land and other employment opportunities, which endangers social stability. There are occupational castes (artisans) who are discriminated in land holdings and ethnic minorities, former slaves and immigrants from East Africa, who lack access to land, and especially land ownership, limiting them to the most menial labor. Amongst the recommendations the report addresses are; the law on state land and compulsory acquisition of land by the state are relatively recent and are in general in line with current best practices. There is however some fundamental problems in its legal delineation of state land. First and foremost, there is a need to provide a clearer distinction between state and communal land. In addition, it is clear that implementation of the law concerning state land is badly flawed, and that there are abuses in terms of uncompensated land takings and illegal appropriations of state lands for private purposes. The law concerning private ownership of land is satisfactory in most respects. Yemen has a long tradition of private ownership and land and rental markets. Those markets are clearly quite active, at least in areas where the economic basis for such market activity exists. The right of pre-emption in Yemeni law, a shari a institution, has been criticized by some commentators, but more recent scholarship recognizes its value. Waqf may offend the economic sensibilities of market economists in that waqf land is permanently held out of the land (sales) market, but it does move in rental markets and in the circumstances of Yemen it performs strong social functions. It supports important public functions and provides access to land for the poor but is increasingly negatively affected by weak supervision and corrupt practices. Tenancies are an important means of access to land in Yemen, especially for the poor, and their relatively stable terms stable terms under customary rules have historically provided a reasonable degree of tenure security. Post-land reform issues remain a problem in the southern governorates. Improving the system for recording of land rights has been a focus of law reform discussions in Yemen in recent years. Women are clearly disadvantaged by the terms of inheritance law, and even more greatly disadvantaged by the failure in practice to realize their limited rights under that law. The situation of disadvantaged ethnic groups deserves priority attention. Their lack of secure access to land, especially owned land, is a violation of the humanitarian values of Islam and condemns them to continuing poverty. There is growing competition for land. This is driven in some parts of the country by the development of new water technologies which have enabled larger- scale cultivation and created economic opportunities. It is clear that land dispute resolution mechanisms are not functioning well.
  • Publication
    Uganda - Post-Conflict Land Policy and Administration Options : The Case of Northern Uganda
    (World Bank, 2009-05-25) World Bank
    This is the second part of land studies on Northern Uganda designed to inform the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP). This second part of the study, undertaken during the second half of 2007 in the Lango and Acholi regions, builds on the first phase conducted in 2006 in the Teso region. This second study has been designed to present a more quantitative analysis of trends on disputes and claims on land before displacement, during displacement and on return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the greater conflict areas of Acholi and Lango regions. The study found that the return from IDP camps to original homes was progressing with varied results tied to the length of time spent in the camps, from 5 to 15 years. About 85 percent of the respondents had experienced threats to tenure security, and many felt these threats were significant. Misgivings exist about the Central Government's intentions towards land. Disputes mainly occurred on land abandoned upon displacement, with border disputes being the most prevalent. The study also looked into land administration, land titling and registration, extremely vulnerable individuals, and legal loopholes. It gives several recommendations, both immediate and long term actions, which can be incorporated and implemented as part of the PRDP.
  • Publication
    Nigeria - An Economic Analysis of Natural Resources Sustainability : Land Tenure and Land Degradation Issues
    (Washington, DC, 2007-07) World Bank
    The scope and urgency of the threats to Nigeria's rural land are no secret. In 2005, a working group dedicated to formulating a national agricultural land policy began the process with a comprehensive articulation of the challenges facing Nigeria's agricultural land. The litany included recognition that: 1) agricultural land use in the country has been unsustainable, resulting in no fewer than eleven types of extensive land degradation and significant degradation of water resources; 2) the country has not classified its land - including its prime agricultural land - according to its use capabilities, and thus has no foundation for allocating land among uses or creating the mechanisms and processes for such allocation; 3) the majority of Nigeria's farmers are smallholders relying on subsistence-level cultivation practices; 4) the country's agricultural labor pool is shrinking, and practices that promote better conservation of natural resources have been too limited; and 5) the rural areas of the country lack of basic and necessary infrastructure, including roads, water, and health and educational facilities. This part of the report analyzes how Nigeria's land policy and legal framework can support efforts to meet the country's expressed land policy goal of sustainable productivity and additional goals of equity and conflict avoidance. Section two makes a brief overview of the links between land tenure systems, agricultural productivity, and equity; section three makes a review of the customary and formal land tenure systems in Nigeria, and section four makes the same for the formal land tenure system. Section five summarizes the existing legal framework and its impact on productivity, equity and potential for conflict. The last section concludes with specific recommendations for unlocking the potential in the country's rural land to meet the needs of its entire people.
  • Publication
    The Land Governance Assessment Framework : Identifying and Monitoring Good Practice in the Land Sector
    (World Bank, 2012) Burns, Anthony; Deininger, Klaus; Selod, Harris
    Seventy-five percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most are involved in agriculture. In the 21st century, agriculture remains fundamental to economic growth, poverty alleviation, and environmental sustainability. The World Bank's Agriculture and rural development publication series presents recent analyses of issues that affect the role of agriculture, including livestock, fisheries, and forestry, as a source of economic development, rural livelihoods, and environmental services. The series is intended for practical application, and hope that it will serve to inform public discussion, policy formulation, and development planning. Increased global demand for land because of higher and more volatile food prices, urbanization, and use of land for environmental services implies an increased need for well-designed land policies at the country level to ensure security of long-held rights, to facilitate land access, and to deal with externalities. Establishing the infrastructure necessary to proactively deal with these challenges can require large amounts of resources. Yet with land tenure deeply rooted in any country's history, a wide continuum of land rights, and vast differences in the level of socioeconomic development, the benefits to be expected and the challenges faced will vary across and even within countries, implying a need to adapt the nature and sequencing of reforms to country circumstances. Also, as reforms will take time to bear fruit and may be opposed by vested interests, there is a need to identify challenges and to reach consensus on how to address them in a way that allows objective monitoring of progress over time. Without this being done, the chances of making quick progress in addressing key land policy challenges are likely to be much reduced. The Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) is intended as a first step to help countries deal with these issues. It is a diagnostic tool that is to be implemented at the local level in a collaborative fashion, that addresses the need for guidance to diagnose and benchmark land governance, and that can help countries prioritize reforms and monitor progress over time.
  • Publication
    Environmental and Gender Impacts of Land Tenure Regularization in Africa : Pilot Evidence from Rwanda
    (2011-08-01) Ali, Daniel Ayalew; Deininger, Klaus; Goldstein, Markus
    Although increased global demand for land has led to renewed interest in African land tenure, few models to address these issues quickly and at the required scale have been identified or evaluated. The case of Rwanda's nation-wide and relatively low-cost land tenure regularization program is thus of great interest. This paper evaluates the short-term impact (some 2.5 years after completion) of the pilots undertaken to fine-tune the approach using a geographic discontinuity design with spatial fixed effects. Three key findings emerge from the analysis. First, the program improved land access for legally married women (about 76 percent of married couples) and prompted better recordation of inheritance rights without gender bias. Second, the analysis finds a very large impact on investment and maintenance of soil conservation measures. This effect was particularly pronounced for female headed households, suggesting that this group had suffered from high levels of tenure insecurity, which the program managed to reduce. Third, land market activity declined, allowing rejection of the hypothesis that the program caused a wave of distress sales or widespread landlessness by vulnerable people. Implications for program design and policy are discussed.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises
    (Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28) World Bank; International Finance Corporation
    Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.
  • Publication
    World Development Report 2011
    (World Bank, 2011) World Bank
    The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.
  • Publication
    World Development Report 2006
    (Washington, DC, 2005) World Bank
    This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.
  • Publication
    Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21) Luna-Bazaldua, Diego; Levin, Victoria; Liberman, Julia; Gala, Priyal Mukesh
    This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.