Cambodia

Goal: Support the efforts of the Royal Government of Cambodia and civil society groups to strengthen land rights for millions of land-insecure households.

Creating opportunity for Cambodia’s rural households.

More than three-quarters of Cambodia’s 16 million people live in rural areas, and nearly half of the country’s workforce is employed in agriculture, making land essential to the livelihoods of the majority of Cambodians. The Government of Cambodia is carrying out a land allocation and formalization program, empowering farmers with a tool to grow a future free of poverty. The first families receiving titles to plots of land saw large increases in agricultural income. In 2023, with a national mandate to accelerate land title registration across the country, these land allocation efforts picked up speed.

Landesa supports the Government of Cambodia to help bring this land allocation program to scale and in alignment with the rights and interests of Cambodia’s smallholders, Indigenous Peoples, and women who rely on access to land. Landesa also works to build the capacity of local civil society organizations to implement land titling programs equitably and effectively. Together, these efforts have the potential to help strengthen the land rights of three million rural households.

Our work

National Legal Reform

Since 2023, Landesa has worked with local partners to incorporate protections for smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples, and women in Cambodia’s new national Land Law. In 2025, the Cambodian government invited Landesa to work with the Ministry of Land to advise on the new law and implementing regulations, allowing Landesa to actively support the government in strengthening tenure rights through law. Landesa is also advising the Fisheries Administration on regulations to support community fisheries and mangrove forest health under the new Fisheries Law. Landesa’s work on the law focuses on extending the duration of community fishery tenure and strengthening communities’ rights to sustainably manage this vital climate and economic resource.

These two historic new laws are both in final draft form with the potential to strengthen tenure security for more than three million farming and fishing families.

Indigenous Communal Land Titling

Landesa supports 68 Indigenous communities in three upland provinces as they work to certify their more than 100,000 acres of traditional forestland vital to their traditions and livelihoods. Together with government and civil society partners, Landesa conducts training for communities to complete each of the steps to formal certification, which include applying for a title, developing internal by-laws, and mapping their ancestral land. As of January 2026, eleven Indigenous communities have received communal land titles, securing a combined area of 18,607 hectares for more than 1,926 families.

Provincial Land Allocation

Following two years of effort by Landesa and local partner People’s Center for Development and Peace, the Governor of Siem Reap Province passed a 2023 sub-decree that opened the way for 50,000 families to formally register their lands and securely invest in their future. This policy serves as a model for tens of thousands more families to receive title in Siem Reap’s neighboring provinces of Battambang, Pursat, and Kampong Chhnang, and adds momentum for similar efforts in other provinces. As of 2025, titling efforts led by a local government partnership with a Land Tenure Network of 100 members supported by Landesa have reached nearly 200,000 people in western Cambodia.

Provincial Fishery Policy

In Preah Sihanouk and Kampot Provinces, Landesa supports the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries to improve community fishery policy. Through a newly formed government Technical Working Group, Landesa advises on the zoning of 26,991 acres of coast to better protect thousands of acres of mangrove forest and the livelihoods of the many thousands of people who depend on these nurseries of the sea. Landesa now seeks to expand these efforts to two additional coastal provinces in Cambodia.

Climate Action

Thanks in part to Landesa’s research and advocacy, Cambodia’s recently updated climate commitments under the UN’s Paris Agreement identify local land tenure as an important tool to support sustainable forest management and increase ecosystem carbon storage. To advocate for this important climate intervention, Landesa publishes research on how secure local tenure can increase carbon storage through community-led management. Landesa’s research also informs educational events with community fisheries, building local knowledge of how sustainable forest practices can help adapt to climate change and protect their livelihoods.