Phnom Penh, July 17, 2014: A half-day meeting was conducted between the NGO Forum on Cambodia and the General Directorate of Agriculture (GDA) to update each side on the Draft Law on the Use and Management of Agricultural Land working progress.
The representatives attended the meeting during the time were H.E SO Khan Rithykun, Government delegation and Director General of GDA, Dr. PHEAV Sovuthy, Director of Department of Agricultural Land Resource Management, Mr. TEK Vannara, Executive Director of NGO Forum on Cambodia, Mr. SIN Sokhomony, Agriculture Policies Monitoring Project Coordinator and Ms. Touch Setha, Land Security Project Coordinator.
The draft law which was initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 2011 and originally named Law on the Use and Management of Agricultural Land was revised to Law on Agriculture Land Management after several times meeting conducted by the working group assembled by the inter-departments of general of agriculture. The GDA formed up the working group in order to endeavor on the process of the draft law in corporation with related CSOs and NGOs by collecting comments and feedbacks provided through the NGO Forum since May 20, 2014, to supplement into the law for content quality improvement. During the meeting H.E. Khan Rithykun mentioned that the working group was carefully reviewing on the draft and after almost a dozen-time reviewing, the subjects from article 1 to 26 were being examination and cleaning up. For further action takes, GDA agriculture plans to organize the regional workshop by focus group discussion and community base approach in early 2015, aiming to continue updating and reviewing on this law.
Taking the opportunity, Mr. Tek Vannara has suggested to the GDA to deliver progress of reviewing this draft law in the Annual Network Member Meeting organized by NGO Forum, which will be held on August 6-7, 2014. As a result, Dr. Pheav Sovuthy, a core member in developing the draft law, will attend the meeting to provide updating presentation to all the participants.