State of Land in the Mekong Region

In a region in rapid transition, understanding the changing role and contribution of land in development is critical to inform policy, planning and practices towards a sustainable future. The Mekong State of Land aims to contribute to this much needed conversation between all stakeholders by bringing together key data and information, largely available in the public domain, to identify and describe the key issues and processes revolving around land. It will be a basis for constructive dialogue and collaborative decision-making. The Mekong State of Land is structured around five domains:

(1) the land-dependent people of the Mekong, including dynamics of rurality, agricultural employment and the on-going structural processes of demographic and agrarian transitions;

(2) the land resource base upon which this population depends, including land use and land covers, agricultural conditions and change, and natural capital base;

(3) the distribution of land across society, including smallholder farmers, medium and large-scale land investors/companies, and other structure factors that determine land access (e.g. protected areas)

(4) the land tenure security, which depends on how the land rights are recognized and formalized

(5) the land governance that shapes access to and control over land resources, including issues of transparency, equity, the rule-of-law and access to justice.

The Mekong State of Land is organized around a number of key indicators within each of these domains and presents these at the regional and country levels.

Given the critical role that knowledge and information plays in allowing for the identification of key issues, accurately characterizing them, and structuring decisions and policies to address them, the State of Land also provides a critical analysis of the data and information that is available (and not) with a view to constructively identify ways to improve the production, management and sharing of data.

The report presented here is a first draft, after receiving observation and comments from interested stakeholders, a final version will be published before the end of 2018