Monday, August 06, 2007

WB president: Land titling is key to overcome poverty in Cambodia

2007-08-05

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- World Bank (WB) President Robert Zoellick said here on Sunday the land titling progress is at the heart of a strategy to overcome poverty in Cambodia and spread the benefits of a growing economy.

The land titling progress enables poor Cambodians to own a stake in both their own future and that of their country, Zoellick said at a press conference, adding that having property rights would also enable people to invest in their farms, small business and household to improve their finance security and their lives.

With support from the WB-financed land management and administration project, the Cambodian government is issuing more than 20,000 titles a month, mostly in rural areas, with 80 percent of the titles registered jointly by wife and husband or female-headed households, he said.

However, many poor people remain landless in Cambodia, Zoellick said, adding that some powerful people are seeking to dominate large tract. He said that Cambodia still faces a huge task of reclaiming productive land and clearing millions of landmines laid during decades of conflicts.

Zoellick presided over a ceremony to hand over land titles to nearly 800 owners in Cambodia after arriving in this country on Saturday.

During the two-day visit, Zoellick met on Sunday with Prime Minister Hun Sen, a number of high-ranking officials, representatives of the private sector and civil society, and locals who have benefited from WB projects, according to a government press release.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Mr. Robert Zoellick continues to talk like this, the Hun Sen government will recommend to have someone new to replace him like he did to Mr. Gashi. And believe it or not, "NO INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY COUNTRY WOULD DARE TO STAND AGAINST THE HUN SEN GOVERNMENT!"

Anonymous said...

Ownership is a very important concept promoted by Mr. Robert Zoellick and HUN SEN better takes notice!

The only way for Cambodian people to protect the well being of Cambodia is to take ownership and with ownership Cambodian people will have incentive to double their effort to produce and to care of what they have and all Cambodian people will benefit from it! I am not just talking about ownership of land spaces but also, underground spaces, air spaces, lakes, rivers, ocean...

Now you know why the Thaicong and the Vietcong government want to take ownership of Cambodian land so that their population can benefit from it!

If HUN SEN don’t want Cambodian people to own anything then the Thaicong and the Vietcong will have no problem owning Cambodia!

Anonymous said...

I could not agree with you more. It is a no brainers! But we have to further understand, with the Hun Sen Government, Title and Ownership are the "illusory terms". Today is yours and tomorrow will be mine. Do you see what has really been happening to those people that all of this time have thought that they have owned their properties legally? THE CORRUPTED OFFICIALS OF HUN SEN'S LOOK AWAY AND REACH UNDER THE TABLE - THE PROPERTY IS NOT YOURS ANYMORE!

The international community and the WB, instead of using bullets and bombs like they did in the past, they are softening up their political strategy and continuing to pour more money into the HS government and deploying more NGO's and Human Rights programs, and hoping that one day (hopefully in the very near future), (1) the innocent Khmer people would rise up for their rights as a human beings against the injustice, (2) the money would drown them to death.

Well, it is only one of my wildness imagination.

Anonymous said...

Incompetent government no need to be told.

Anonymous said...

THere is no doubt that all recommandations of WB excutif are very necessary to rebuilt Cambodia because he is living in a civilised country and has full experiences in this regard. I have also said many times too that Cambodia should now start to make a land reform by re-distribute all land to all Cambodians of two ages and must now canecl all land concessions contacts because all the contractors have breached their legal obligations in their investment rules. All farmers must have all the farms where they have lived. All urban residences, all business people and all Government officials must be banned from occuppying farmlands and properties outside of their residences. Each farmer should have more than 20 ha of lands.

Anonymous said...

The WB president ought to know that all the lands in Cambodia belong to Hun Sen's families and his cliques, namely: Sok An, Hok Lundy, Hun Neng, Sok Kong, just to name a few big fishes.

No matter how many land titles handed out to those powerless peasants, when the values ($) of the land go up the peasants weep the powerful pocket the money. The untouchable few will just evict the peasants from their lands. And the WB and the International Community can just kiss Hun Sen and his cronies' arses.