What is happening at MRLG?

Here at LEI and Gret’s Mekong Region Land Governance project we are moving towards the end of Phase 1 in June. We expect a relatively seamless shift into the second phase, which is anticipated to start in July this year, for another four years.

From two recent external project evaluations, it’s clear that the project has gained considerable regional traction since its inception and is now making a significant contribution to the regional land governance debate. The reviews recommend that Phase 2 should build on these achievements and take a more focused and streamlined approach to policy and practice change.

The Project Implementation Unit (PIU) have prepared a Phase 2 Project Design Document in close cooperation with project funder SDC. We have agreed that Phase 2 will be based on the following features:

• In each country and at a regional level, strategic areas of work (Thematic Work Streams and Alliances) will be defined by a policy or practice objective, and all activities will aim to support this policy objective. We envision one to two priorities per country initially, while at the regional level, we plan to initiate two to three thematic work streams and alliances;
• The definition of the strategy and plan of activity for each of these policy/practice change work streams will be defined in cooperation with a core group of committed stakeholders/ partners, who will first agree on a common goal, and then form alliances for change;
• The alliances will develop a flexible work plan, in which the definition of activities/sub-projects and responsibilities are shared among members;
• New activities will be supported by MRLG under partnerships and contractual agreements with identified alliance members, and funding will be flexible in both size and duration, however not through open calls for proposals;
• MRLG will continue to work closely with governments with strong political will to adopt favourable policy objectives for smallholder farmers, as well as with Reform Actors working with similar agendas.
• MRLG will continue to develop evidence-based information and identify and establish various channels for dialogue and influence pathways to draw the attention of decision-makers to critical policy and practice issues of land governance.

From January, MRLG entered a transition period towards its 2nd Phase, compiling and completing Phase 1 activities. It has started to turn its focus to developing targeted policy and practice change work streams for Phase 2.

The Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG), is a project of the Government of Switzerland, through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), with co-financing from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Government of Luxembourg.
The MRLG project supports land tenure security of smallholder farmers. The MRLG project is implemented by Land Equity International (LEI) in partnership with Group de Recherché et d’ Echanges (Gret) and supported by the Deutsche Gesellscha& fűr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).