1. Land Use Planning As An
Arena of Power Struggle in
Laos
Diana Suhardiman, Oulavanh Keovilignavong, Miles Kenney-Lazar
Diana Suhardiman
Senior Researcher
International Water Management Institute
2nd Land Forum, Bangkok 28-30 May 2018
2. Land policies in Laos
• Internal Resettlement
• Land Use Planning and Land Allocation
• Turning Land into Capital
3. Land use planning processes
• National Land Master Plan
• TABI FALUPAM
4. Approaches to land use planning
• as something neutral, a-political and strictly technical
• as a function of power and contested arena of power struggles
• as processes rooted in existing power structures and
relationships
5. Draft National Land Master Plan
• 70% of forest land
• 4.5 million ha of agricultural land
• Remaining land for large infrastructure development
6. Sectoral development targets
• There is a need to unpack these targets
• Overlapping boundaries between forest and agriculture land
• Villages within the 3 forest categories
7. Overlapping agriculture and forest lands
• The government targets rapid land titling to be completed in
2025
• Can people living in the protected forest also be given land title?
• Land titling program could increase farmers’ land tenure security,
it could also reduce others’
9. Rotation schedule in Houaykong village
Zone Year Upland areas (in ha)
1 2017 188
2 2018 182
3 2019 161
4 2020 184
5 2021 249
6 2022 187
7 2023 213
Source: The Agro Biodiversity Initiative (TABI, 2018)
10. Unequal access to land 1 of 2
• Prevailing power of original settlers group
• Their perceptions of the defined land use plan
11. • Lost of additional benefits and income from informal land rental
agreement
• Khmu original settlers have access to multiple land areas
• Khmu recent settlers lack access to agricultural land and have to
rent land
Unequal access to land 2 of 2
12. Key findings 1 of 3
• Land use planning has been presented as a technical approach to
solve a political problem pertaining to land use allocation across
scales
• Actors and institutions shape the plan in relation to their
interests, strategies and access to resources
13. • Land use planning as a tool to bridge policy and institutional
divides in land management
• Direct participation in land use planning processes does not
guarantee the plan’s actual significance
Key findings 2 of 3
14. • The need to unpack key assumptions behind the defined
development targets
• The need to develop key indicators for land tenure security and
food security beyond area-based agriculture development
Key findings 3 of 3
