World Bank Highlights Three Drivers for Better Rural Livelihoods in Cambodia

• Kongleaphy Keam
• 16 December 2021
• Uncategorized
• 1744 Views

The World Bank recently stated that land rights, basic infrastructure and livelihood skills are the three major drivers for rural development in Cambodia.

The World Bank has thus far cooperated with the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, pushing the three drivers through the well-known Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development Project (LASED).

LASED is a program co-organised to gift land to poor and indigenous people in Cambodia, which to date has already reached phase 3. (Read more)

Besides gifting land, the program has also built basic infrastructure to promote the livelihood of targeted people such as roads, schools, health centres, community centres, markets. Through LASED, 2, 345 km of roads, 8 school buildings, 14 teachers houses, 5 health posts, and 12 community centres and markets have been built.

In addition, local people are also trained on how to use their land effectively and skills to improve their livelihood.

Since the project began in 2008, at least 30,000 hectares of land have been provided to more than 50,000 poor families across the kingdom through LASED 1 and 2.

In June last year, the World Bank approved another US$93 million to implement the third phase for another six years from 2021. The third phase will be a larger scale program, covering 71 communities in all provinces except Phnom Penh.

In a visit to see the project’s progress recently, Mariam Sherman, the World Bank Country Director for Cambodia, Myanmar and Lao PDR, said people give a strong argument for the benefits of a more integrated approach to development as exemplified by the LASED project in Cambodia.

“This combination of land rights, basic infrastructure and livelihoods skills can clearly provide both immediate and long-term benefits. The people here and the project teams have worked hard to make a success of this investment,” she said.

• Social and Contribution
• land development and policy