Phnom Penh, December 28, 2015: Seventeen NGOs representatives attended the last quarterly meeting of the year with Ministry of Land Management Urban Planning and Construction (MLMUPC), chaired by H.E Sor Sovann, to discuss and update working progress on land situations in Cambodia. The main agendas for the meeting were:
1. Updating on guidelines and legal documents to support the Conversion of Private Land Titles (PLT) to Communal Land Titles (CLT)
2. Monitoring on the Land Registration process at Tomnop 2&3 with the Systematic Land Registration Process at Samaky Community, Thnal Chhum Village
3. Discussion on the awareness raising activities on the land policy, and the relocation policy
Dr. Tek Vannara, NGOF’s Executive Direction, was the facilitator in this occasion. Various results for further implementation plans were developed by both parties. Based on the request from NGO working group to organize a workshop on process of the Systematic land Registration related to Tomnop 2 & 3 communities which plan to conduct in early of February 2016, however, the Ministry has promptly suggested postponing it. The reason was that the MLMUPC is going to submit the letter within this week to Phnom Penh Municipality to request the above communities as an evaluation area for Systematic Land Registration.
Additionally, the ministry representative added that a proposed workshop on Land Policy (LP) or White Paper, in which scheduled to be held on December17, 2015 was suspended due to most of the relevant NGO members scheduled were pretty tight. This workshop will be re-scheduled to April 2016 instead. The NGOs and IPs will be invited to attend. The NGOF also requested if the relevant ministry would consider sharing budgets on printing the land policy or white paper and distributing to the public. In response to this, the MLMUPC suggested the NGOs to submit an official letter. At the same time, Housing Right Task Force (HRTF) used to print 100 copies of LP and distrusted to the communities.
Responding to assertion raised by the NGO representative in connected to a future Technical Officers Meeting, which comprises of NGOS, MoI, MLMUPC, MoRD and plan to conduct on the 3rd week of February, 2016, the MKMUPC promised to send the expertise to participate in this meeting.
The MLMUPC has shared that for the registration application for the IP Communities in 2016 were majority from Rattanakiri, Mondulkiri and Stung Treng. On the other hand, Battambong province was cancelled, since some of the areas are still covering with mines.
Overall, the MLMUPC representative urges the NGOs to work closely with the ministry to seek for the solutions together with responsible and respect to the human rights and the law.
The NGO working group in the meeting included NGO Forum on Cambodia (NGOF), Indigenous Community Support Organization (ICSO), and Development Partners in Action (DPA), Community Managed Development Partners (CMDP) and Housing Right Task Force (HRTF).