MRLG facilitates a regional stakeholder consultation workshop for addressing land challenges in the Mekong

The Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project recently held its second round of stakeholder and consultation workshops with regional partners from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The three priority objectives were to:

• share information about on-going MRLG initiatives from the various activity and funding streams, receive feedback from partners
• provide a working space for technical and planning discussions on regional Learning and Alliance-building activities – addressing the thematic priorities of the project on: recognition of customary tenure; evidence-based research for land scale land acquisition policy and regulation; and private engagement for responsible investment in agro-forestry, and
• provide a coordination opportunity between national and regional activities for ongoing implementation.

Workshop participants consisted of partner organisations and individuals involved in MRLG- supported activities from the public and private sector, non-government and civil society organisations and academia. More than 80 people attended – representing over 30 organisations from six countries in Southeast Asia.

The MRLG project supports engagement opportunities between organisations, learning from experience, and sharing lessons (where appropriate) with regional partners that may be applied in the various policy contexts. Workshop attendees are preparing for coordinated responses and priority areas for joint collaboration on issues of land governance. A particular focus for future activities is on preparing information necessary for policy making and improving practices that will ensure family farmers have secure access and control over land, and natural resource tenure. The workshop and MRLG’s ongoing Learning and Alliance-building activities provide a platform for various stakeholders to build a common understanding of the issues, contexts and solution pathways to work on across national and regional level action plans.

Unique challenges, different enabling economic and political environments, and new opportunities were addressed by sharing experiences from the participants. In relation to principles of responsible agricultural investment, opportunities exist in Lao PDR via improved dialogue and awareness-raising. Since the progressive National Land Use policy was approved in January 2016 by the government in Myanmar, there are potential opportunities to work in an improved policy context that will allow the creation of improved pathways for the poor and ethnic communities through the recognition of customary tenure. In Cambodia, working with the Ministry of Environment has resulted in opportunities to further strengthen land tenure situations for local farmers, identify opportunities for equitable reallocation of cancelled economic land concessions – particularly for land to be returned to original owners. In Vietnam, project activities are playing a role to assist local communities to negotiate for State Forest-allocated areas to be returned fairly.

The 22-24 February 2016 workshops were held at the Mercure Hotel and co-funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), supported also by GIZ. It is foreseeable that future contributions towards the Grant Facility will come from the Luxembourg Government Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MFEA).

For more information on the MRLG project, please see http://mrlg.org/ and http://www.landequity.com.au/projects/mrlg/.