Resource Governance

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One of the great challenges of the 21st century is to bring about global equity without further overstepping the planet’s ecological limits or overusing the earth’s finite resources.

Tenure security, or more specifically lack thereof, is a pervasive problem in Cambodia. While rural households are driven from their land in the thousands to make way for Economic Land Concessions and other types of developments, urban residents, particularly the poor, continue to live with insecure tenure. Over 150,000 people in Phnom Penh – representing 11% of the capital’s current population – have been displaced over the past two decades.

Large-scale wind farms and solar power plants are springing up everywhere one looks. That’s good for the climate, but small-scale farmers and the poor are becoming the pawns of hard-nosed business interests around the world.

For more than three years, The Heinrich Böll Foundation has been supporting the development of the Cambodian Indigenous Youth Association (CIYA). Both organisations are sharing an office since CIYA was registered as an independent organisation in September 2008. CIYA is the first association of indigenous youth on the national level. CIYA works to achieve its vision of strong and prosperous indigenous people that are able to protect indigenous cultures and tradition, as well as their lands and natural resources.

“More wealth can result in more corruption” cautioned Dr. Ramos Horta Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and President of Timor-Leste participants at a Dialogue on Transforming Natural Resource Wealth into a Source for Sustainable Growth and Democratic Development organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Cambodians for Resource Revenue Transparency.

China has a huge thirst for natural resources and sources them from across the world, including the Mekong Region. In Search of Aluminum takes a look at developments, decision-making and regional.