ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Farmer indebtedness is a serious problem in Myanmar and the number of landless farm households is increasing. Working capital finance for farmers is exceedingly expensive except for the rather small amounts provided by the MADB and bad harvests can mean that farmers need to sell their land to satisfy loan repayments, becoming casual laborers instead. There is a serious lack of financing for equipment.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Burma has entered a pivotal stage in its political and economic development. The advent of a new quasi-civilian government has raised the prospect of fundamental reforms. This has sparked great investment interest among governments and the private sector in the region and beyond, to extract the country’s natural-resource wealth, and to develop large-scale infrastructure projects to establish strategic ‘corridors’ to connect Burma to the wider economic region.

While there is ample evidence of state and corporate complicity in the serious and systematic human rights violations that have surrounded the development of industrial sugarcane plantations in Cambodia, nobody has been held accountable and those affected have been denied access to an effective remedy at the local and national levels. Unable to obtain redress through Cambodian institutions, affected communities have turned to Europe in search of accountability.

A report revealing how Siamese rosewood has been illegally logged to the brink of extinction in the Mekong region to feed the demand for luxury hongmu furniture in China.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) plays a leading role in the achievement of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1 – the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. The majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas and have labour and land as their only or main productive assets. Therefore, promoting secure access to and control and use of land as well as secure and productive employment and decent work for women and men in rural areas is vital to achieving MDG1.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Of the many challenging issues that will require resolution within the peace processes currently underway between the government of Myanmar and various ethnic groups in the country, few will be as complex, sensitive and yet vital than the issues comprising housing, land and property (HLP) rights.

The Government of Vietnam has identified the conversion of forests to plantations of industrial crops such as rubber as one of the five drivers of deforestation and degradation in the country. Presently, Vietnam is actively participating in various international initiatives such as the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) programmes.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Burma has been praised in recent years for the return to a civilian government and for the implementation of legislative reforms; international economic sanctions are being lifted and President Thein Sein became the first Burmese politician to enter the White House since 1966. However, this common picture does not reveal the depth and complexity of the current situation in Burma. Now is a crucial time.

In light of the increasingly volatile nature of the land conflict in Cambodia, this Report aims to describe the sources, forms and impact of the conflict throughout the country. The Report offers an overview of the land conflict throughout the country and provides recommendations to the RGC. Chapter 1 (Introduction) provides a brief overview of the status of land rights and the different ownership system throughout Cambodia’s history and of the land situation in today’s Cambodia, before discussing the scope, methodology and purpose of this Report.

This briefing note presents the findings of seven case studies conducted from May to June 2014. The studies were conducted in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal and Thailand and looked into the livelihood and food security among indigenous shifting cultivation communities in South and Southeast Asia. The briefing note provides a summary of the main findings of the case studies and the common recommendations from a multi-stakeholders consultation held August 28-29 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This report is an independent assessment of human rights issues related to the German-Cambodian Land Rights Program (LRP), which began in March 2011. The assessment was neither tasked to evaluate the impact of German predecessor programs in the land sector nor to undertake a legal assessment of the LRP’s sphere of influence and thus does not do so. The assessment aims to gain insights which can be used for management decisions by the BMZ as well as for a possible next phase of the LRP (03/2013- 02/2016).

ABSTRACTED FROM THE GENERAL COMMENTS SECTION: The RGC in its combined 2010 Fourth and Fifth National Report (the ―RGC Report‖) on the Implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in Cambodia, makes specific reference to provisions in the Constitution and the Penal Code 1, claiming that the existence of these provisions in and of themselves, alongside plans to pass additional laws, guarantees full equality of women with men in the protection and enjoyment of human rights, as well as protection from all forms of discrimination.