The Inspection Panel report is available here.
Human rights organizations welcomed news last week that the World Bank Inspection Panel will conduct a full investigation into the Bank-funded land-titling project in Cambodia, following a complaint that groups vulnerable to forced eviction have suffered serious harm from the project.
The complaint was filed in September by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), with the support of Cambodian housing rights groups, on behalf of more than 4000 families living around Boeung Kak lake who have suffered or are currently threatened with forced eviction. It alleges that the Bank breached its operational policies by failing to adequately supervise the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), which has denied urban poor and other vulnerable households due process rights and protection against increasing land-grabbing and forced evictions in Cambodia.
In its response to the complaint issued in December, the World Bank acknowledged the validity of these claims and agreed to approach the Cambodian Government to discuss measures to mitigate the harms of the project. The proposed measures included improving the living conditions and livelihood opportunities for people who have been evicted or who are at risk of forced eviction. However, the Cambodian Government did not agree with the proposed plan and refused to partner with the World Bank to address the claims made in the complaint.
Salih Booker, COHRE Executive Director, welcomed the decision by the World Bank Board of Directors to conduct a full investigation into LMAP, but urged immediately implementation of the Bank’s mitigation efforts, with or without the Government’s involvement, saying “the housing rights of thousands of families are at stake at this very moment.”
David Pred, Executive Director of Bridges Across Borders Cambodia, highlighted similarities to a World Bank Inspection Panel case in Albania last year, in which a Bank-financed project was also implicated in forced evictions. At that time, World Bank President Robert Zoellick promised "the Bank would move promptly to strengthen oversight, improve procedures and help the families who had their buildings demolished." Zoellick added that "the Bank cannot let this happen again."
“They let it happen again,” said Pred, “and this time it is 4000 families losing their homes. The World Bank cannot walk away from these families just because the Government has closed the door. The Bank needs to provide a direct remedy to the people it has acknowledged have been harmed by this project.”
The Cambodian Government abruptly ended its agreement on the project with the World Bank in September 2009 after a disagreement about the applicability of World Bank social safeguards in cases like Boeung Kak. Despite the government’s termination of the agreement, human rights groups have demanded that the Cambodian government continue to be held accountable for its obligations to adhere to the project’s policy on involuntary resettlement.
The groups stated the Bank should carefully consider how it will engage in the future with a government that refuses to respect its contractual obligations to uphold resettlement safeguards. “This is an important test of the World Bank’s safeguard policies,” said Sia Phearum, Director of the Cambodian Housing Rights Task Force. “If the Bank is really committed to these policies, then there should be consequences for the Government’s actions.”
contacts
David Pred
Executive Director
Bridges Across Borders Cambodia
david@babcambodia.org
+855 92 285954
Sia Phearum
Secretariat Director
Housing Rights Task Force
cam.hrtf@gmail.com
+855 23 215 590
Bret Thiele
Senior Expert – Litigation and Advocacy
bret@cohre.org
+1 218 733 1370
Background on Boeung Kak case and forced evictions in Cambodia
Spanning 90 hectares in central north Phnom Penh, Boeung Kak lake is one of the only large open spaces left in Cambodia’s capital city. Prior to the recent evictions, approximately 4000 families lived on and around the lake with many depending on the lake for their livelihood. Families have been living around the lake since the early 1980s when they returned to the city following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Most of these families have legal rights to their land under Cambodia’s 2001 Land Law.
Despite the legitimate claims to the land of many of the residents around Boeung Kak, when the titling team from the World Bank-financed Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) adjudicated the area in early 2007, the residents were denied title en masse. In the same month, the Cambodian government entered into a 99-year lease agreement with a private developer, Shukaku Inc., over 133 hectares including the lake and surrounding areas. Shukaku Inc. is headed by Lao Meng Khin, a Senator and major donor to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, who is also director of the controversial logging company Pheapimex.
Families living in the development zone began facing pressure and intimidation to leave the area in August 2008, when the developer commenced filling in the lake as part of its development plans. While few details about the development have been made public, it is estimated that approximately 20,000 people will be displaced. Included in this figure are the more than 1000 families that have already been evicted without their land rights being properly adjudicated and acknowledged. In the absence of any legal protections, these families accepted woefully inadequate compensation under conditions of duress. This was in direct violation of the World Bank’s Policy on Involuntary Resettlement, which the Cambodian government agreed to respect in conjunction with LMAP.
Evictions and forcible confiscation of land continue to rank as one of Cambodia's most pervasive human rights problems. In Phnom Penh alone, approximately 133,000 residents, or 10% of the city’s population of over 1.3 million have been evicted since 1990. While precise nationwide figures are difficult to ascertain, the rate of forced evictions appear to have increased in conjunction with, amongst other things, the granting of concessions over vast tracts of land to private investors. Meanwhile, rural landlessness has skyrocketed from around 13% in 1997 to as high as 25% in 2007.
Coupled with the absence of tenure security, rapidly increasing land values have led to rampant land grabbing by powerful and wealthy elites, to the severe detriment of local communities. The pretext of development is used to justify the forced relocation of low-income households to remote and desolate resettlement sites. However, frequently the projects driving this displacement are beset with corruption and unjust practices, perpetuating a development model that favors powerful interests at the expense of deeper poverty and increased hardship for the most vulnerable. The impending Boeung Kak Lake development is the largest and most visible of these development projects.
Read more
NGO letter to World Bank Board about LMAP in Cambodia 18 November, 2009 (Acrobat pdf 2 MB)
Cambodian communities facing forced eviction launch Inspection Panel complaint against World Bank, BABSA and COHRE, October 2, 2009 (BIC website)
Untitled: Tenure Insecurity and Inequality in the Cambodian Land Sector, Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Jesuit Relief Services, October 2009 (Acrobat PDF, 1.38 MB)
28 April 2010Human rights organizations welcomed news last week that the World Bank Inspection Panel will conduct a full investigation into the Bank-funded land-titling project in Cambodia, following a complaint that groups vulnerable to forced eviction have suffered serious harm from the project.
The complaint was filed in September by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), with the support of Cambodian housing rights groups, on behalf of more than 4000 families living around Boeung Kak lake who have suffered or are currently threatened with forced eviction. It alleges that the Bank breached its operational policies by failing to adequately supervise the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), which has denied urban poor and other vulnerable households due process rights and protection against increasing land-grabbing and forced evictions in Cambodia.
In its response to the complaint issued in December, the World Bank acknowledged the validity of these claims and agreed to approach the Cambodian Government to discuss measures to mitigate the harms of the project. The proposed measures included improving the living conditions and livelihood opportunities for people who have been evicted or who are at risk of forced eviction. However, the Cambodian Government did not agree with the proposed plan and refused to partner with the World Bank to address the claims made in the complaint.
Salih Booker, COHRE Executive Director, welcomed the decision by the World Bank Board of Directors to conduct a full investigation into LMAP, but urged immediately implementation of the Bank’s mitigation efforts, with or without the Government’s involvement, saying “the housing rights of thousands of families are at stake at this very moment.”
David Pred, Executive Director of Bridges Across Borders Cambodia, highlighted similarities to a World Bank Inspection Panel case in Albania last year, in which a Bank-financed project was also implicated in forced evictions. At that time, World Bank President Robert Zoellick promised "the Bank would move promptly to strengthen oversight, improve procedures and help the families who had their buildings demolished." Zoellick added that "the Bank cannot let this happen again."
“They let it happen again,” said Pred, “and this time it is 4000 families losing their homes. The World Bank cannot walk away from these families just because the Government has closed the door. The Bank needs to provide a direct remedy to the people it has acknowledged have been harmed by this project.”
The Cambodian Government abruptly ended its agreement on the project with the World Bank in September 2009 after a disagreement about the applicability of World Bank social safeguards in cases like Boeung Kak. Despite the government’s termination of the agreement, human rights groups have demanded that the Cambodian government continue to be held accountable for its obligations to adhere to the project’s policy on involuntary resettlement.
The groups stated the Bank should carefully consider how it will engage in the future with a government that refuses to respect its contractual obligations to uphold resettlement safeguards. “This is an important test of the World Bank’s safeguard policies,” said Sia Phearum, Director of the Cambodian Housing Rights Task Force. “If the Bank is really committed to these policies, then there should be consequences for the Government’s actions.”
contacts
David Pred
Executive Director
Bridges Across Borders Cambodia
david@babcambodia.org
+855 92 285954
Sia Phearum
Secretariat Director
Housing Rights Task Force
cam.hrtf@gmail.com
+855 23 215 590
Bret Thiele
Senior Expert – Litigation and Advocacy
bret@cohre.org
+1 218 733 1370
Background on Boeung Kak case and forced evictions in Cambodia
Spanning 90 hectares in central north Phnom Penh, Boeung Kak lake is one of the only large open spaces left in Cambodia’s capital city. Prior to the recent evictions, approximately 4000 families lived on and around the lake with many depending on the lake for their livelihood. Families have been living around the lake since the early 1980s when they returned to the city following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Most of these families have legal rights to their land under Cambodia’s 2001 Land Law.
Despite the legitimate claims to the land of many of the residents around Boeung Kak, when the titling team from the World Bank-financed Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) adjudicated the area in early 2007, the residents were denied title en masse. In the same month, the Cambodian government entered into a 99-year lease agreement with a private developer, Shukaku Inc., over 133 hectares including the lake and surrounding areas. Shukaku Inc. is headed by Lao Meng Khin, a Senator and major donor to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, who is also director of the controversial logging company Pheapimex.
Families living in the development zone began facing pressure and intimidation to leave the area in August 2008, when the developer commenced filling in the lake as part of its development plans. While few details about the development have been made public, it is estimated that approximately 20,000 people will be displaced. Included in this figure are the more than 1000 families that have already been evicted without their land rights being properly adjudicated and acknowledged. In the absence of any legal protections, these families accepted woefully inadequate compensation under conditions of duress. This was in direct violation of the World Bank’s Policy on Involuntary Resettlement, which the Cambodian government agreed to respect in conjunction with LMAP.
Evictions and forcible confiscation of land continue to rank as one of Cambodia's most pervasive human rights problems. In Phnom Penh alone, approximately 133,000 residents, or 10% of the city’s population of over 1.3 million have been evicted since 1990. While precise nationwide figures are difficult to ascertain, the rate of forced evictions appear to have increased in conjunction with, amongst other things, the granting of concessions over vast tracts of land to private investors. Meanwhile, rural landlessness has skyrocketed from around 13% in 1997 to as high as 25% in 2007.
Coupled with the absence of tenure security, rapidly increasing land values have led to rampant land grabbing by powerful and wealthy elites, to the severe detriment of local communities. The pretext of development is used to justify the forced relocation of low-income households to remote and desolate resettlement sites. However, frequently the projects driving this displacement are beset with corruption and unjust practices, perpetuating a development model that favors powerful interests at the expense of deeper poverty and increased hardship for the most vulnerable. The impending Boeung Kak Lake development is the largest and most visible of these development projects.
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