View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UCL Discovery Donor-Funded Titling and Urban Transition: a Case Study of the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia Benjamin Cyrus Roger Flower Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography University College London Declaration I, Benjamin Cyrus Roger Flower, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Abstract Land titling is a popular development intervention to secure the housing tenure of residents across cities of the global south. This thesis contributes to our understanding of city-wide titling by examining the World Bank’s Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It draws on archival sources, interviews, focus group discussions and questionnaire surveys in three field sites. The thesis finds that LMAP has enabled some historically marginalised communities to secure their property rights. Others have been excluded from legal ownership as their lands have been transferred to an elite group of developers. At the household level, titles have resulted in a range of outcomes. In general, recipients have accessed larger formal sector loans and invested more in income-generating activity and housing improvements than non-recipients. Titles have, however, exposed some to increased credit-related risks of displacement. The thesis contributes to debates about titling in several ways. First, it provides a household-level analysis of a city-wide project in a post-socialist city. Most studies of titling have focused on unplanned settlements in cities where formally-recorded ownership is the norm. The reorganisation of property rights associated with city- wide projects may produce different outcomes, as it affects both unplanned and established urban areas. Second, it adds to debates about access to credit by examining titling in the context of a booming microfinance industry and other forms of lending emerging in the global south. Third, it provides evidence of the diverse mechanisms by which city-wide titling influences both small-scale housing investments and large-scale redevelopment projects. Fourth, it ties into debates about the political economy of international development, highlighting the intended and unintended consequences of donor-funded titling for the social, economic and- political processes of urban change. Acknowledgements This research would not have been possible without the positive engagement of the many research participants who generously gave their time to answer my questions. My supervisor, Ann Varley, provided invaluable guidance and plenty of constructive feedback on all aspects of this thesis for which I am very grateful. Thanks also to my second supervisor, Charlotte Lemanski, for helpful comments on my draft chapters. This PhD was funded by a University College London Impact Award, co-hosted with the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI). I am grateful to those who supported this partnership, particularly CDRI’s former Executive Director Larry Strange – a truly great boss. Thanks also to Paul and Mary Slawson for generously supporting my fieldwork through the Royal Geographical Society’s Slawson Award. I was lucky to be based at the CDRI campus in Phnom Penh for much of my PhD, and my research benefited immensely from the friendly, collegial atmosphere of the institute. My supervisor at CDRI, the late Pem Catalla, was a valuable source of knowledge and support; Tong Kimsun, Hing Vutha, So Sovannarith, Sothy Khieng and others shared their years of expertise as researchers; Hossein Jalilian brought me into CDRI in the first place; Sim Vichet provided invaluable assistance in data collection and analysis; Susan Watkins provided humour and cups of tea. This thesis would not have been possible without help from other researchers in Phnom Penh’s land sector, particularly Mark Grimsditch, who provided feedback on chapters, contacts and answered endless questions about Cambodian land law. Thanks also to Sok Lida, Piotr Sasin, Leakhana Kol and the many others who were so generous with their time. Thanks to fellow PhD students Jin-ho, Matt, Pooya, Aiden, Ruth, Myfanwy, Anna, Susana, Laurie, Sabina, Rachel, Sopheak, for their conversations and insights. Finally I am grateful to my family and friends – both in the UK and Cambodia – who without exception remained stoic during the long years of this PhD. Contents Chapter 1: Introduction _________________________________________________ 1 1.1 Prologue ______________________________________________________1 1.2 City-wide titling: a contentious policy framework ______________________3 1.3 Land policy and urban development in Phnom Penh ____________________6 1.4 Research questions ______________________________________________8 1.5 Structure of the thesis ___________________________________________10 Chapter 2: Land Titling and Tenure Security: an Overview _________________ 13 2.1 Introduction___________________________________________________13 2.2 Targeted titling ________________________________________________14 2.2.1 Titling and unplanned settlements ______________________________14 2.2.2 Critiques of land titling in unplanned settlements __________________20 2.2.3 LMAP and settlement upgrading _______________________________24 2.3 Land titling and city-wide urban land management ____________________27 2.3.1 Titling as a tool to increase efficiency of urban land markets _________27 2.3.2 Land titling and neoliberalism _________________________________31 2.3.3 City-wide titling and the LMAP _______________________________35 2.4 Conclusion: reconciling targeted and city-wide debates_________________37 Chapter 3: A History of Land Reform and Urban Transition in Cambodia _____ 40 3.1 Introduction___________________________________________________40 3.2 Beginnings of urbanism at Angkor _________________________________40 3.3 The introduction of a European system of property rights _______________42 3.4 The Khmer Rouge period ________________________________________48 3.5 The Vietnamese occupation ______________________________________51 3.6 The emergence of private property _________________________________54 3.7 Donor-supported tenure frameworks _______________________________56 3.8 Land market activity outside the formal framework____________________61 3.9 Conclusion ___________________________________________________64 Chapter 4: Methodology _______________________________________________ 66 4.1 Introduction___________________________________________________66 4.2 Overall methodological approach __________________________________66 4.2.1 Approaches to land policy analysis _____________________________66 4.2.2 Approach of this study _______________________________________68 4.3 City-wide methods _____________________________________________70 4.3.1 My role as a participant in Cambodia’s land sector_________________70 4.3.2 Documents ________________________________________________73 4.3.3 Key informant interviews_____________________________________77 4.3.4 Data from other research projects ______________________________80 4.3.5 Making sense of multiple streams of data ________________________81 4.4 Household-level analysis of project implementation and outcomes________82 4.4.1 Rationale for survey site selection ______________________________82 4.4.2 Overview of the survey sites __________________________________84 4.4.3 Data collection _____________________________________________87 4.4.4 Data Analysis ______________________________________________89 4.5 Ethics and limitations of the research _______________________________90 Chapter 5: The Exclusion of Unplanned Areas from Cambodia’s First Round of Titling, 1989-2001 _____________________________________________________ 94 5.1 Introduction___________________________________________________94 5.2 Patronage, privatisation and poverty in Cambodia’s land sector __________95 5.2.1 Public and private sector elite patronage _________________________95 5.2.2 The urban poor as an illegitimate social group ___________________100 5.3 Tools of exclusion: inequitable legal frameworks ____________________101 5.3.1 Exclusion and the 1989 decree and 1992 Land Law _______________102 5.3.2 The distribution of tenure documents in Tonle Bassac _____________107 5.4 Transferring real-estate via patronage networks______________________109 5.4.1 A land grab by General Chao Phirun ___________________________110 5.4.2 Theng Bunma and the Thai Boon Rong Company ________________112 5.6 Conclusion __________________________________________________115 Chapter 6: Donor-Funded Land Titling in Unplanned Areas of Phnom Penh___ 117 6.1 Introduction__________________________________________________117 6.2 Neoliberal policy mobility and the LMAP __________________________118 6.2.1 Titling as a best practice international development intervention _____119 6.2.2 Institutional development, policy mobility and the LMAP __________120 6.3 Policy possibilities of donor-funded land reforms ____________________123 6.3.1 The possible outcomes of land titling __________________________123 6.3.2 The LMAP as providing a legal basis for equitable tenure__________126 6.4 Old power structures, new frameworks ____________________________130 6.4.1 Vested interests and titling___________________________________131 6.4.2 Strategic exclusions