Agriculture

Smallholder farmers have more secure and equitable access to and control over agricultural land and forests in the Mekong Region.

Rapid socio-economic changes in the Mekong region in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam (CLMV) have caused an increase in the need for land for infrastructure and agribusinesses. Across the region, the livelihoods of many smallholder farmers have been affected by agricultural investments that have reduced their access to the land they depend on. This affects farmers in remote areas, who have little to no documentation of their customary land tenure. The government has been developing various policies for managing investments related to land expropriation, compensation, concession granting and conflict resolution. The implementation of these policies has been challenging and there are a variety of positive and negative experiences that can be drawn from different countries to help policymakers respond to these challenges.

The project contributes towards the Mekong Region Land Governance Project (MRLG). MRLG is jointly funded by the Government of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Co-financing also comes from the Government of Luxembourg and Germany. MRLG aims to improve policies and practices regarding land-tenure security for farmers. These policy recommendations are developed by alliances of reform actors in each country and regionally. These alliances follow regional or national-level workstreams to facilitate improvements in policy and practices across two thematic areas (customary tenure and responsible agricultural investments). In most cases, influencing policy focuses on improving laws, implementation decrees and regulatory mechanisms. Additionally, changes to practices focus on improving effective implementation of policies at local administration level.