World Bank approves US$93 million for land allocation to poor landless people

• 29 June 2020
• Local News
• 2048 Views

The World Bank recently approved US$93 million to implement a project on Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development Phase III (LASED III) to provide land tenure for landless and poor and indigenous communities in Cambodia.​

The project will provide sustainable and secure access to land and natural resources for small agricultural business and rural communities as part of government’s poverty reduction strategy, according to a World Bank press release on 26 June  2020.

To implement the poverty reduction strategy, the government has established a legal framework for Social Land Concessions (SLC) to expand land titling for the landless rural poor and promote land titling promoted Indigenous Communal Land Titling (ICLT) to enhance tenure security for indigenous people over their lands.

LASED III will cover 71 communities in all provinces of Cambodia except Phnom Penh. The project will support rural roads, small-scale irrigation, water supply and sanitation, school buildings, teachers’ houses, health posts and community centres. The new SLC recipients will also receive seedling assistance for their first-year crops.

Inguna Dobraja, World Bank Country Manager for Cambodia said that the project is crucial for the rural poor because once they could have access to land, they could also access better agriculture practices and extension services to improve productivity as well as access better public services.

In March, MLMUPC proposed the LASED III project with a budget of around USD$100 million. (Read more)