Land Management and Administration Project World Bank Inspection Panel Complaint
The World Bank Inspection Panel found that the Bank breached its operational policies by failing to properly design and supervise the Cambodia Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), following a complaint prepared by BAB Cambodia on behalf of some 4,250 families facing forced eviction from their homes around Phnom Penh’s iconic Boeung Kak Lake. The Inspection Panel found that these failures contributed to the forced eviction of the Boeung Kak residents, who were unfairly denied the right to register their land ownership through LMAP before the government leased the area to a private developer and began a campaign of intimidation and pressure to force families living in the area to leave.
The LMAP was established with the stated aim of improving security of tenure for the poor and reducing land conflicts in Cambodia by systematically registering land and issuing titles across the country. However, a report released in 2009 by BAB Cambodia and the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions found that land-grabbing and forced evictions have escalated significantly over the last ten years, while many vulnerable households have been arbitrarily excluded from the titling system. This exclusion has denied these households protection against land-grabbing and adequate compensation for their expropriated land, often thrusting them into conditions of extreme poverty.
Despite strong evidence to prove their legal rights to the land, Boeung Kak residents were excluded from the titling system when land registration was carried out in their neighborhood in 2006. Shortly thereafter, the Cambodian Government granted an illegal 99-year lease over the area to a private developer. Residents of the area covered by the lease – many of whom have lived lawfully in the area since the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 - were suddenly accused by the Government of being illegal squatters on State-owned land.
The World Bank Inspection Panel found that the Bank breached its operational policies by failing to supervise the Government’s implementation of social and environmental safeguards tied to the project that were intended to ensure that a Boeung Kak scenario would not unfold. In particular, a Resettlement Policy Framework was included in the LMAP loan agreement between the World Bank and the Cambodian Government, which established a fair process for resettlement and compensation of people found to be residing on State land.
The World Bank acknowledged in August 2009 that the Involuntary Resettlement safeguards had been breached and approached the Cambodian Government to discuss measures to bring the project back into compliance. The Government responded by abruptly ending its agreement with the World Bank on LMAP, citing the Bank’s “complicated conditions” as the reason for its move. Since that time, the Cambodian Government has rebuffed all World Bank attempts to remedy the situation and forced evictions in the Boueng Kak area have continued unabated.
Homes of Boeung Kak’s Village 1 residents submerged in mud by “developer” Shukaku Inc. in November 2010. Back to Development Watch |
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