The Governments of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam increasingly provide long-term land concessions to investors, making tenure insecurity the main driver of new poverty. SDC is addressing land and forest governance issues with current and planned bilateral programs in these countries. At global level, SDC has supported, inter alia, the development of “Voluntary Guidelines on the responsible Governance of Tenure (…)” (FAO, 2012). A recent study has shown that there would be significant merit in a complementary regional project.

The project is expected to contribute to smallholder farmers in CLMV countries having secure and equitable access to and control over agricultural land, forest, and fisheries. Expected project outcomes are (1) Reform actors in the CLMV countries are more effective in securing smallholder tenure, and (2) Policies, institutions, and practice on land use and land related investment in the CLMV countries promote smallholder tenure security and related public goods. The intervention strategy for outcome 1 is to facilitate peer learning and to distill good practices. Interventions for outcome 2 are policy advocacy, support to reform actors and organizational development. The project includes a “Quick Disbursement Fund” to support reform initiatives. It is planned for 8 years and 16 000 000 CHF for the learning and policy components and QDF, with additional contributions from third parties for an “Innovation Fund” to allow application of new approaches by reform actors. It will be implemented by an organization/consortium that is already engaged in land governance in the Mekong region.