The government is due to launch the Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development Project III (Lased III) from 2020-2025 to the tune of $60 to $90 million, aimed at alleviating poverty in five northeastern provinces. FACEBOOK
The government is due to launch the Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development Project III (Lased III) from 2020-2025 to the tune of $60 to $90 million.
The land allocation is aimed at alleviating poverty in five northeastern provinces, easing the hardships of the homeless, and providing 18,000 families with agricultural land, said Dok Doma, the director of Lased II.
Doma is also the deputy director of the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction’s General Department of Housing.
Speaking to The Post on Sunday, he said: “The nationwide poverty rate remains at 10 per cent, so we aim to reduce it further. The project is aimed at poor people who have no land. If they don’t have land, we will allocate them housing and agricultural land so they can farm and build houses.”
Residents are considered fit to receive support as long as they live permanently in the village or commune and have social security cards issued by local officials, he said.
They will be allocated land to benefit society and for their development, Doma said, but if they have migrated from one province to another, they will not be eligible.
He said working groups were currently studying five provinces in which to expand the third project – Kampong Thom, Mondulkiri, Ratanakkiri, Preah Vihear and Stung Treng.
“The provinces in the northeast have a high rate of poverty. The government is highly committed to getting the poverty rate below 10 per cent and we will expand the phase three project from 2020 to 2025,” Doma said. He said the government will grant land to construct residential projects and for agricultural use.
The areas will be urbanised, he said, by building roads, schools, nurseries, markets, community and health centres, wells and ponds, and residential homes for teachers.
Doma said the project will provide training in raising livestock, growing trees and choosing agricultural products which are right for the land.
The government will grant the land, provide seeds and build irrigation systems in response to the local people’s demands and ensure agricultural products have a high production yield so residents have food security and can sell their crops at local markets.
Bou Saroeun, the communications officer for the World Bank’s Cambodia Office, inspected land for the project in Tipor commune in Kampong Thom province’s Santuk district last Thursday.
He said the World Bank supported the allocation of social concessions and the economic development which will be expanded in five provinces but said the budget had not yet been set.
“The project will help villagers by giving people decent houses to raise their families, by allowing them to send their children to school regularly and by granting them agricultural land,” he said.
Lased I is being implemented in 14 zones in five provinces – Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Speu, Kampong Thom, Kratie and Tbong Khmum – by the ministries of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction; Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the National Committee for Sub-National Democratic Development from 2016 to 2021.
It has a budget of $26.8 million, supported by a grant from the World Bank, and some 5,141 families are set to benefit.
