|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Poverty, Agricultural and Rural Development
1. Introduction Welcome to Poverty, Agriculture and Rural Development Programme (PARD) website of CDRI – Cambodia’s Leading Independent Development Policy Research Institute. PARD has conducted research on various aspects including rural livelihood, land issues, social issues in rural area and urban, agricultural trade, and tourism. In order to provide information about our research projects/programmes, we have designed this site to serve as a portal for access to key research findings and policy relevant documents produced with involvements of PARD members. Local and international audiences including policy makers, civil servants, researchers, consultants and students are welcome to this website. 2. Programme Background PARD was originally established in order to carry out research related to agriculture, rural development and poverty with a focus on sustainable development. Poverty has become the main focus of the program PARD, however, has broadened its research activities to cover related aspects such as agricultural trade and tourism.
PARD, in collaboration with other programs within CDRI and other research institutes, work to ensure high quality of research outputs. PARD aims to provide policy makers, researchers, development workers with key development issues. The objectives of the program are: 3. Research Team Back to top
Dr
THENG Vuthy
-
Programme Coordinator
4.
Ongoing Research Projects
4.
Recent Research Publications
Cambodia Land Titling Rural Baseline Survey Report Back to top The Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction (MLMUPC), with support from international donors, is implementing a Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) to improve land tenure security and strengthen land administration systems. Among other activities, the project has established a systematic land-titling program that will issues one million titles over a five-year period. The project expects that land titles will help: (a) increase farmer access to formal credit; (b) stimulate agricultural and commercial investments in rural and urban areas that will increase productivity and employment; (c) promote more efficient land markets, and (d) promote the use of the official registry to facilitate land transactions and transfers. The LMAP land-titling program is also expected to help achieve the Royal Government of Cambodia’s poverty reduction objectives as outlined in the National Poverty Reduction Strategy, 2006 – 2010 (NPRS). Cambodia Land Titling Urban Baseline Survey Report CDRI in collaboration with the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Construction and Planning, collected baseline survey data in and around Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Serei Saophoan (i.e., Banteay Meanchey) from October to December 2005. CDRI conducted 2706 household interviews in areas representing a mix of property characteristics and land use patterns, as well as dynamics (e.g., transactions, documentation, conflicts). The primary objective of the urban baseline survey, as with an earlier rural survey (CDRI 2004), is to generate data that will provided a basis for a systematic comparative evaluation of the economic and social impact of the land-titling program after three years. The expected benefits of land titles in urban areas include increased investment in residential and commercial property, improved access to formal credit, more efficient markets that allocate land to more economically productive uses, fewer conflicts and better land administration services, including the use of the official registry to facilitate land transactions. Other expected benefits include increased government revenue from taxes on land transactions. Government planners and others also expect more secure land tenure through land titles to play an important role in reducing poverty in both rural and urban areas. Land titles are therefore expected to strengthen the institutional framework of urban development and thus contribute to sustainable macro-economic growth. Irrigation Water Use in Takeo Province: Problems, Conflicts and Solutions Back to top In Cambodia, irrigation is mainly used for dry season rice farming. Wet season farming, which produces approximately 80 percent of the total crop, relies on rainwater. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), in 2006 total rice yield was estimated at 6.3 million tonnes, an increase of five percent from the previous year. The reason for this increase was partly the expansion of irrigation, according to MAFF. Despite its potentially important role, however, irrigation still receives little investment from either the state or the private sector. The World Bank’s 2006 Cambodia Poverty Assessment emphasises improved irrigation infrastructure in increasing paddy yield and argues that more public investment is needed to strengthen irrigation management. Cambodian irrigation schemes, to date, have been unable to hold their full storage capacity because reservoirs have been deteriorated and leaking, limiting water for farming. Irrigation issues often go beyond limited water to water governance and conflicts. Thun and Chem (2007) argue that answers to the existing problems generally depend on a package of governance, technical design and popular participation. Recognising the importance of irrigation, the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI), with support from the Economy and Environment Programme for South-East Asia (EEPSEA), conducted research on irrigation water use and related issues. This paper aims to present practical options that may be useful to a wide spectrum of readers, from policy makers to extension workers. The study’s main objectives were to understand the water use problems confronting irrigation projects. The specific objectives are 1) to provide an overview of irrigation systems with a focus on Takeo, 2) to study irrigation water use and conflicts and 3) to find possible solutions to irrigation constraints. Moving Out of Poverty Study (MOPS) Back to top The Moving Out of Poverty Study (MOPS) is a first of its kind in Cambodia, one of 18 studies commissioned by the World Bank to examine poverty dynamics and trends. Conducted in 200 /05 , the study revisited nine rural villages in which CDRI had conducted research in 2001 , using quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the extent to which these villages and individual households had been able to move out of poverty and improve prosperity, or had experienced downward mobility and decline. The study set out to examine: which communities or groups move out of poverty and which remain trapped and why; whether people experience mobility differently in different economic conditions; how and why governance and social networks matter in mobility; what factors explain household and community progress and mobility or decline and stagnation; and the interaction between household and community factors, as well as any variations between villages and types of households. Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) The Participatory Poverty Assessment of the Tonle Sap (PPA) has been undertaken by CDRI in collaboration with the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The study employed qualitative research methods covering 24 villages in the six provinces around the Tonle Sap Lake. The main objective of the study has been to provide policy makers, donors, and civil society with a deeper understanding of (1) the relationship between poor people’s livelihood strategies and their use and the management of natural resources, (2) the gender dimensions of poverty, and (3) the role of local governance in poverty reduction.
The PPA study shows that
many of the poor and the destitute in the Tonle Sap region are not
benefiting from Cambodia’s rapid economic growth, and often appear to be
beyond the reach of public policy. This observation poses serious challenges
for the government and its development partners in delivering effective
poverty reduction outcomes in line with the objectives set out in the
National Strategic Development Plan aimed at meeting Cambodia’s MDGs. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
