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| Drowned out in Beoung Kak Lake (Photo: Tin Zakariya, RFA) |
5 April 2011
David Pred and Natalie Bugalski
Bertton Woods Project
The World Bank Inspection Panel released an investigation report in March, which found that the Bank breached its operational policies by failing to properly design and supervise the Cambodia Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), contributing to “grave harm” to affected families. The Bank’s Inspection Panel found that the Bank’s failures contributed to the forced eviction of some 20,000 people living around Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak Lake. Residents were wrongly denied the right to register their land ownership under the $28.8 million Bank-financed land titling project shortly before the government leased the area to a private developer and began a campaign of intimidation to force more than 4,000 affected families to sell their property for a fraction of its market value.
The project was established with the stated aim of developing the land market and improving security of tenure for the poor by systematically registering land and issuing titles across the country. However, the Panel found that many poor and vulnerable households have been arbitrarily excluded from the titling process, denying them an opportunity to claim and formalise their land rights. The Panel attributed this failing to non-compliance with the Bank’s operational policies and procedures on project appraisal and supervision.
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