Phnom Penh, June 05, 2015: A half-day meeting was conducted between the NGO Forum on Cambodia (NGOF) and the General Directorate of Agriculture (GDA) in order to update each side on the Draft Law on Agricultural Land working progress.
The meeting chaired by H.E So Khan Rithykun, Government delegation and Director General of GDA, Mr. AM Phirum, Deputy Head of Department of Agriculture Land Resources Management, and the NGO Representatives from NGOF, Oxfam, Action Aid and NDF-C.
During the meeting, H.E So Khan Rithykun mentioned that the working group organized dozen of meetings to review this draft law. He added that the draft law was later on submitted to H.E TY Sokhun, Secretary of state, Ministry of Agriculture Forestries and Fisheries (MAFF) for reviewing and comment.
Currently GDA is working on contents and format on some chapters after feedback from MAFF. In those twelve chapters and 90 articles were added and cleaned up.
“All the comments and feedbacks from CSOs/NGOs upon the first draft law was valuable, and our working group have consolidate around 65% of all feedback into this draft law. As I could remember, we have been started collecting them since May 20, 2015, and sooner this law will be adapted and release to the public,” said H.E So Khan Rithykun.
“It was such a result from this meeting, since GDA agreed with our propose idea to organize another official consultation working. As arranged, GDA is going to organize an Official Announcement and Public Consultatoin Workshop to discuss on the first draft Agriculture Law during the second week of August 2015,” Dr. Tek Vannar, NGOF’s Executive Director stated. “For this upcoming event, NGOF was selected to play a main role in coordinating this workshop with CSOs, Development Partners and community members.”