PUBLISHERS DESCRIPTION OF BOOK: Claims to land and territory are often a cause of conflict, and land issues present some of the most contentious problems for post-conflict peacebuilding. Among the land-related problems that emerge during and after conflict are the exploitation of land-based resources in the absence of authority, the disintegration of property rights and institutions, the territorial effect of battlefield gains and losses, and population displacement.

Under the motto “old policies - new action”, in June 2012 the Cambodian Prime Minister initiated a massive land registration campaign on untitled former forest land. Unauthorised settlers and other long- term users of these lands, including those inside Economic Land Concessions, had been considered illegal before. Those of them who are poor now receive full property title by way of donation. The campaign was planned for 12 months and targets 470,000 families on 700,000 parcels comprising a total of 1,8 Mio hectares. The campaign might be extended though into the year of 2014.

We draw on empirical results from three case studies of property rights change across forest and fisheries ecosystems in central Vietnam to investigate the circumstances under which collective property rights may make sense. A generic property rights framework was used to examine the bundles of rights and associated rights holders in each case, and to assess these arrangements with regard to their contextual fit, legitimacy and enforceability.

OPENING PARAGRAPH OF EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Whereas 2011 had seen a sharp increase in the number of Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) granted by the Royal Government of Cambodia to private companies, in 2012 conflicts became more acute and protests multiplied. The government showed that it had understood the seriousness of the situation by taking initiatives aimed at resolving land disputes, addressing some of the issues related to ELCs and granting thousands of land titles to rural families.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The overall QSEM program aims to provide a descriptive picture of rural life in Myanmar. It examines different livelihood strategies and activities, the wider factors that shape these strategies, and how the broader social and institutional features of community life affect people’s livelihoods choices and outcomes. Specifically, it explores how external assistance affects individual behavior, coping mechanisms, and community social structures. How do those social structures shape the local economic environment?

This paper investigates the real financial consequences of investing in land with disputed tenure rights. It demonstrates that companies which ignore the issue of land tenure expose themselves to substantial, and in some cases extreme, risks. Using case study analysis, the paper connects ground-up financial thinking with empirical reality. In so doing, it makes a strong case for the need to integrate tenure-related risks more comprehensively into our financial architecture.

The issue of women’s access to land is often framed in the context of oppression, emancipation, or Vietnamese uniqueness. This study report examines contemporary women’s access to land across ten provinces outside of these traditional narratives. Ten selected research sites reflected a diveristy of rural-urban locations, lineage patterns, and ethnic diversity.

Land Tenure Working Paper 20 presents an overview of the distinctive features of communal tenure in different community-based land and natural resource management systems. Two models of communal tenure are presented in the paper; these models differ in terms of the function of the state, the length of tenure and the characteristics of the resource system concerned.

Most of the land reforms of recent decades have followed an approach of “formalization and capitalization” of individual land titles (de Soto 2000). However, within the privatization agenda, benefits of unimproved land (such as land rents and value capture) are reaped privately by well-organized actors, whereas the costs of valorization (e.g., infrastructure) or opportunity costs of land use changes are shifted onto poorly organized groups. Consequences of capitalization and formalization include rent seeking and land grabbing.

It has proved much easier to observe the stark divide between the ‘professional optimists’ in the development industry and the ‘professional pessimists’ in academic development studies than it has to disrupt these roles or to explain them in ways that prevent them remaining entrenched. This paper will present and discuss the “Geographies of Evasion” hypothesis which claims to explain how and why rights-based development interventions in particular fail.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Myanmar faces an unprecedented scale of structural landlessness in rural areas, increasing displacement threats to farmers as a result of growing investment interest by both national and international firms, expanding speculation in land and real estate, and grossly inadequate housing conditions facing significant sections of both the urban and rural population. Legal and other protections afforded by the current legal framework, the new Farmland Law and other newly enacted legislation are wholly inadequate.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE SUMMARY: Notwithstanding progress both nationally and locally, there is not yet evidence of sufficient support either internationally or nationally for REDD to effectively neutralise either the top-down or the bottom-up drivers of deforestation in Cambodia. This report reviews official documents and research reports over the 2009-2012 period, supplemented by field visits in 2010 and 2011, in order to summarise lessons learned from Cambodia’s early engagement with REDD from the viewpoint of poverty reduction.