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Updated Myanmar Guidebook on Customary Tenure Documentation Now Available

9 March 2018
Customary Tenure Guidebook Myanmar Cover
Customary Tenure Guidebook Myanmar Cover

Mekong Region Land Governance launches an updated guidebook for documenting customary tenure in Myanmar on 9 March in Yangon. 


This second edition of “Documenting Customary in Myanmar: A Guidebook” includes:


  • an introduction to customary tenure concepts and principles,
  • an overview of legal issues and challenges to claiming customary tenure under Myanmer’s current legal framework; and
  • practical tools and resources to help people document their own customary claims.

The aim is to improve people’s understanding of the diversity of rights that exist under customary systems and to assist them in claiming and protecting those rights.


Although the recognition of customary rights has been a central element of the National Land Use Policy, the current laws do not yet protect the rights and customary practices of the local communities and smallholder farmers of Myanmar,” Aung Tin Moe, MRLG’s Myanmar National Facilitator, stresses. “Improving laws and policies is a must but it will take time. In the meantime, it is important to empower communities and help them identify what are the important customary rights and practices they want to protect.”


The step-by-step guide is based on the actual experiences of local groups who have documented customary tenure and enriched by their stories.


Myo Thant, one of several MRLG alliance partners who supported pilot activities for the guidebook, observes that the recognition of "customary practices is not just important for peoples’ livelihoods and cultural heritage but is also a crucial stepping stone for the country’s peace process.


“I believe this guidebook can really help different ethnic groups for this. It can empower communities to better assert their land rights against competing interests; it can build evidence to help advocate for customary tenure recognition at various levels, and it can also help communities to reflect on their issues concerning land and natural resources management,” he said.  


The guidebook, which is in both Burmese and English, may be downloaded here


It will also be available via the Land Portal repository.  While the guidebook is specific to Myanmar, it may provide a useful template for similar approaches in other countries.


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 and the Government of Luxembourg and implemented by LEI and GRET. The project aims to address weak land governance and tenure insecurity in the Mekong region by empowering local reform actors, building alliances, and supporting policy influencing activities as windows of opportunity emerge. It takes a regional approach across four countries, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to support cross country learning and to facilitate and open up space for dialogue and alliance building.

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