Over 943,069 hectares of land in rural Cambodia have been granted to private companies as economic land concessions, for the development of agro-industrial plantations. Thirty-six of these 59 concessions have been granted in favour of foreign business interests or prominent political and business figures. These statistics exclude smaller economic land concessions granted at the provincial level, for which information on numbers and ownership has not been disclosed.

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.

Under the development paradigm of ‘Economic Concessions’ increasingly large areas of Cambodia’s land have been given over to establishing fast-wood plantations in recent years. Whilst proponents have argued that plantations are necessary for Cambodia’s economic development, opponents have argued that overall the rural poor do not benefit and that, in addition, there are numerous other negative social impacts and environmental consequences.

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.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE OBJECTIVES: This paper aims to identify, scrutinise and comment upon the quality and adequacy of different existing large data sets (available from government ministries, international organisations, research institutions and so forth) that contain information on land use, tenure and related issues. It then analyses these data to establish linkages between standards of living/poverty and landholding.

A discussion paper by Robyn Johnston, Michael Roberts, Thuon Try and Sanjiv de Silva on groundwater for irrigation in Cambodia, published by International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka, iDE Cambodia in June 2013.

The research employs case studies to grasp the processes and forms of ongoing land consolidation, factors affecting land consolidation, viewpoints on land consolidation and impacts of land consolidation on stakeholders and the society. Nine models of land consolidation are selected in the research in various provinces.

Primer premio de la categoría Ensayos del Concurso 2015, el trabajo que ahora presentamos se basa en la investigación Construcción de ciudadanía a través de políticas contra la exclusión social: el caso de “Familias en acción” y “Familias por la inclusión social” en los Conurbanos de Bogotá y Buenos Aires, tesis de maestría de la authora.

 
Para continuar aportando al diálogo sobre el estado actual de la Agricultura familiar, difundimos en esta oportunidad el presente artículo, que mereció una mención entre los resultados del Concurso Alimentos y pensamientos, siempre en agenda, en la versión del año pasado. El autor nos propone una mirada actual al tema a partir de la construcción de su concepto, de algunos hechos de escala internacional y de experiencias de políticas públicas en Brasil que están contribuyendo a reinstalarlo, definitivamente, en las agendas del momento.  

* Ivo Lesbaupin

 COOPERACION INTERNACIONAL Y CRISIS FINANCIERA
 Vera Gianotten*
La actual crisis mundial, cuyas perspectivas día a día empeoran sin que nadie se atreva a vislumbrar su fin, está teniendo consecuencias sin precedentes en el mercado financiero global, pero sobre todo afectará de forma severa a los países empobrecidos del planeta.