MSc BUDD: Transforming Discourses | Cambodia

The Bartlett Development Planning Unit

MSc Building and Urban Design in Development Student Report

Transforming discourses Transformation in a time of transition: engaging with people-driven upgrading strategies in Cambodia

dpu Development Planning Unit

In partnership with ACHR and CAN-CAM

I. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report is the outcome of months of research, preparation and work produced not only by eight of us, but also many others. Without their help, dedication, and efforts this document, as well as the experiences that shaped it, would have not been possible.

We would like to acknowledge the incredible job that our professors and teachers and alumni at the DPU did in organizing this unforgettable trip and guiding us constantly in our discovery of a country full of potential.

Thank you Camillo Boano, Giorgio Talocci, Giovanna Astolfo, Catalina Ortiz, Giulia Carabelli, Yun-Shiuan Hsieh and Francesco Pasta.

We give our special thanks to those whom we met in Cambodia and who also enriched our experience on the field. Thank you, ACHR team — Maurice Leonhardt, Chawanad Luansang and Supawut Boonmahathanakorn, for sharing experiences of your work in Cambodia and across South-East Asia. A big thanks to Mr Sok Visal and the staff from CDF, and to the CAN-Cam team: Kao Danak, Lennylen Chou, Ye Sokly.

We would also like to express special gratitude to their excellencies the Governor of Phnom Penh, the Vice Governor of Phnom Penh, the mayor and the staff of the Stueng Saen city office, and the representatives from the Ministry: Utdom Smd, Bandith So, Thol Sem

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for sharing their knowledge and expertise with us.

Likewise, it was an honor to meet and share our work with representatives of Sen Sok and Chbar Ampov districts of Phnom Penh.

Finally, we are sending our warmest thanks and words of support to Cambodian students and community leaders and members because of their great devotion to the project, their friendship, collaboration, and warm hospitality.

II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report proposes alternative approaches that aim to trigger transformative practices in Cambodia.

Transformation, in this context, is understood as a process that cultivates platforms for collaboration between diverse discourses to achieve socially just outcomes. This document is the culmination of the research carried out by students from University College London (UCL) at the Development Planning Unit (DPU) pursuing a Master course in Building and Urban Design in Development (MSc BUDD). The research was carried out before, during, and after a fifteen-day trip to Cambodia in collaboration with our partners: the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights (ACHR), the Community Development Fund (CDF), and the Community Architects Network (CAN).

In chapter 1, we analyse Cambodia using four lenses of transition: political, economic, social, and physical; where transition is understood as a gradual change from one condition to another. This allowed us to understand the circumstances that lead to the current state of Cambodia. Along this first understanding, in chapter 2 we analyse existing academic debates on transformative practices in order to define transformation and use it as a critical lens through which to explore and observe the realities of Cambodia. We see transformation as challenging the existing dichotomy of powerful and powerless by opening up spaces of negotiation in which individuals come together for the elaboration of peopleled initiatives to promote negotiation and their inclusion

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in processes that shape the city and their reality. To achieve this, we see as key elements in the definition of transformation the principles of collaboration and transparency for the creation of knowledge and autonomy and visibility for the possibility of putting this knowledge into action.

In chapter 3 we portray our observations and findings in each of the sites we visited, under the principles defined in chapter 2, focusing not only in how transformation could occur but also the ways in which it is already taking place. With this on-site analysis, we were able to obtain key findings and the possibility to revise and refine our principles for understanding transformation. These findings and refined principles were used as points of departure for the generation of an intervention strategy, developed in chapter 4, which seeks to bring about the circumstances for the creation of collaborative platforms at different scales and between and within stakeholders. To achieve this, we designed three different proposals that should be seen as occurring simultaneously since one is not a prerequisite of another. They are presented as processes required to achieve our vision of transformation in Cambodia, whereby citizens are the subjects and not merely the objects of their own development. The strategy and proposals are grounded not only on our experiences on the field but also on our research of processes and policies led by governmental institutions and NGOs which are already taking place.

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III. CONTENTS

I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS III EXECUTIVE SUMMARY VII ACRONYMS IX INTRODUCTION XI ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

16 HISTORICAL CONTEXT 18 TRANSITION TODAY 20 TRANSITION 30 URBAN REALITIES TODAY 32 ACTORS OPERATING IN CAMBODIA 34 INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS 36 CIRCULAR 3 38 HOUSING POLICY 40 CDF 46 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 48 TRANSFORMATION & PRINCIPLES

52 STUDY SITES 54 SITE PROFILE: STUENG SAEN CITY 56 BOEUNG VENG REIK CHAMROEUN 68 SITE PROFILE: PHNOM PENH 70 ANLONG KNGAN 82 BOEUNG CHOEUK MEANCHEY THMEY II 94 REFINING PRINCIPLES 100 KEY FINDINGS

PREFACE

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UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

01

CONCEPTUALISING TRANSFORMATION

02

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

03

04

ACTIVATING SPACES OF CONVERGENCE

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CONCLUSION

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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APPENDIX

TRANSFORMATION REFINED 104 SELF-UPGRADING THROUGH COMMUNITY SAVING GROUPS 106 ALTERNATIVE LAND DISCOURSES 110 INTER-CONNECTED CITY 114 TRANSFORMING DISCOURSES 118

REFLECTIONS & CONCLUSIONS 122

BIBLIOGRAPHY 126

APPENDIX 132

IV. ACRONYMS ACCA Asian Coalition for Community Action

MPP Municipality of Phnom Penh

ACHR Asian Coalition for Housing Rights

MSS Municipality of Stueng Saen

ADB Asian Development Bank

NGO Non Governmental Organisation

BUDD Building and Urban Design in Development

RUFA The Royal University of Fine Arts

CAN Community Architect Network

UCL University College of London

CAN-CAM Community Architect Network Cambodia

UN-HABITAT United Nations Human Settlements

CDF Community Development Foundation (Formerly

Programme

UPDF)

UN-TAC United Nation Transitional Authority in

CEDT Community Empowerment and Development

Cambodia

Team

UPCA Urban Poor Coalition Asia

CMDP Community Managed Development

UPDF Urban Poor Development Foundation

Partnerships

WB World Bank

CNRP Cambodia National Rescue Party CPP Cambodia People’s Party CSNC Community Savings Network of Cambodia DPU Development Planning Unit GIZ Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German International Cooperation) HFHC Habitat For Humanity Cambodia JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency LICADHO Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights

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Source: Tasneem Nagi

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V. INTRODUCTION This relatively young independent nation experienced years of unbalanced political leadership and unequal development, resulting in a very tangible dichotomy of realities between the powerless and the powerful in which the majority of the powerless — the poor, have a limited voice and narrow opportunities in achieving social, economic, physical and political upgrading. Nowadays, however, the country is in a state of transition in which visible efforts are being carried out by the government in order to include the poor in development efforts, as portrayed in the recent creation of policies like Circular 3 and the National Housing Policy. Yet, this recognition of the necessity to include all Cambodians in processes of development is not enough, as the ways in which this inclusion should be implemented and operationalised have not been fully developed. Thus, the current work being carried out in Cambodia by DPU, in partnership with ACHR, CAN & CDF, seeks to provide alternative processes which emphasize people-led initiatives, which we see as fundamental in achieving transformative outcomes, where transformation is understood as the creation of spaces, both physical and social, where all Cambodians have equal opportunities and options to choose how achieve personal and communal development. The present report, in providing proposals that seek to operationalise our understanding of transformation, is part of these efforts.

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The present document narrates our learning trajectory before, during and after the field trip as well as an attempt to foster transformative potentialities in the socio-spatial dialectic already present in Cambodia’s transition. The knowledge in the report is co-produced in the partnership with the Cambodian students, NGOs, MLMUPC, community residents and local authorities.

Therefore, a significant part of our proposals is emulation of already existing radical grassroots propoor practices, with the effect our own analytical and theoretical framework from the MSc BUDD scholarship.

This report is principally created to support and inspire the already existing, work of ACHR, CDF and CANCAM and other grassroots movements that have been actively implementing many of ideas that are similar to our responses. Our work echoes their advocacy for a transformative pro-poor policy frameworks in Cambodia. Secondly, we see the report as a valuable contribution in the process of developing new academic agency that aims to reclaim the sociopolitical project of architecture and planning.

“the urban poor themselves have to be incorporated into the design, implementation and evaluation of their housing solutions. This, however, requires the existence of minimal political space, that in turn allows the organized expression by the settlers, without obstacles and manipulations. The key issue lies in organizing the urban poor so that they can lobby and negotiate with the state and other sectors of society for the transfer of resources, for the implementation of policies favourable to them and for a broadening of the space of participation conducive to a more democratic society.”

(Stein 1991, p. 59)

Source: Belen Desmaison

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VI. ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

We, therefore, do not see our learning process as a linear outcome, as we were constantly learning in each stage and revisiting previous stages and reformulating them.

Thus, rather than a perfectly linear process, we saw instances of circular and cyclical learning that resulted in a richer outcome.

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THE RESEA RC ING M H A

LONDON

CAMBODIA

TRANSITION TRANSFORMATION -

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Definition of

PROPOSAL

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During the fieldwork, we discovered realities and dynamics already happening on the ground that helped us to refine our understanding of transformation.

These findings, along with our revised definition of Transformation and its different components, allowed us to produce a strategy that seeks to bring about platforms for the realisation of our vision for Cambodia.

To achieve this strategy, we propose three proposals, which tackle different problematics and should, therefore, occur simultaneously in order to foster the circumstances for Transformation.

INTO PRO THESIS POS SYN AL

FR

Our process of understanding Transition and Transformation in the context of Cambodia started in London, where we carried out some initial research on the current conditions of the country as well as the historical processes that lead to this contemporary reality. Our research included articles, lectures, presentations and other media which directly narrated the history and reality of Cambodia, as well as academic writings which dealt with definitions of the issues identified at a global and a policy scale and problematised socio-spatial dynamics on an intellectual level. With this, we were able to funnel our findings into lenses that we carried to our on-site analysis.

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Framework structure XII

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION The present-day transition and urbanisation in Cambodia manifests the country’s turbulent history. Here is a brief overview of the country’s historical development through four different lenses - the political, economic, social and spatial.

Source: http://cdn-113a.kxcdn.com/sites/default/files/story/images/AP7501091230.jpg

1.1 HISTORICAL CONTEXT During Shihanouk regime between the 1950s to 1970, Cambodia went through its ‘golden age’ after its independence from France. Shihanouk legislated a development policy enhancing construction of new towns & infrastructure, envisioning a modern nation. Cambodia’s history has always been affected by neighbouring countries. During the 1960s, Vietnam was under war, which gradually reached Cambodia, resulting in the expulsion of the king in what is known as the Khmer Rouge Regime, which lasted between 1975 and 1979. During this time, all the property records were abolished and land records invalided. People in Phnom Penh evacuated from the city, and the city became empty.

In 1991, an agreement in Paris was a turning point for the country. It ended the violent period, and the city ‘re-entered’ its urban development. Since then, with the aim of enhancing development of the private sector and foreign investment, Cambodia started to formalize land ownership. In 2001, the Asian Development Bank agreed to give further financial aid, on the condition that the government enacted a land law, which allowed the obtaining of land ownership for those who have occupied areas of land since 2011. In 2004, Cambodia joined the WTO benefiting from a rapid growth in global demand. In parallel with the rapid development, land price increased between 30% to 50% annually, stimulated by a speculation boom in real estate, which forced the poor leave the center of the city.

1863 UNDER FRENCH RULE 16

1969 AN ERA OF VIOLENCE

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

1985 PERIOD OF RECOVERY

1992 A YOUNG ‘DEMOCRACY’ 17

1.2 TRANSITION TODAY Cambodia has been in a state of constant instability since its independence sixty years ago. The fluctuations of the Khmer nation can be better understood if analysed through political, economic, social and physical changes. These changes can be linked to each other, as we understand these processes as occurring simultaneously across time. By looking at these changes in the past, we hope to convey opportunities for change in the future.

18

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-07/an-khmer-rouge-timeline/5655920

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

Source: http://blogs.ft.com/photo-diary/files/2014/02/cambodia.jpg

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1.2 TRANSITION [POLITICAL] Different ruling elites with diverse political ideologies led to a constant re-definition of the vision of Cambodia as a country. While the King emphasized the necessity of a close relationship between the government and the people, Pol Pot enforced his political views on them, by forcing people into labour. Finally, Hun Sen set as a priority the relationship between the state and private investors.

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KING NORODOM SIHANOUK “Sihanouk strove to solve Cambodia’s economic and social problems through the idiosyncratic ideology of ‘Royal Buddhist socialism’. His aim was ‘a democracy comprehensible to the people’, in which the untutored masses would exercise ‘a real, direct and continuous control of institutions’.” (Telegraph 2012)

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/new/2012/10/15/national/images/30192340-03_big.jpg

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

POL POT

HUN SEN

Commander of the Khmer Rouge, that ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.

He sought to transform Cambodia into a communist, rural society. Cambodians living in cities were expelled from their rural environments and forced to work in agriculture. “Thousands were murdered in special detention centres and thousands more died from starvation and overwork.� (BBC, n.d.)

Has been ruling the country for over 30 years as the leader of CPP. Characterised by ruling under neoliberal ideological influences, he opened Cambodia to foreign investment.

Source: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/pol-pot2.jpg

Source: http://www.thesoutheastasiaweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/470_ap_ hun_sen_091008.jpg

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1.2 TRANSITION [ECONOMIC] Changing government institutions were accompanied by alternating economic trends that in turn had sociospatial manifestations. From the ultimate collapse of the economy during vicious Khmer Rouge times to persistent GDP growth that alongside the rise of a new middle class was also associated with modes of urbanisation that is detrimental to the poor.

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NEW KHMER ARCHITECTURE Institute of Foreign Languages, Phnom Penh. New Khmer Architecture of the 1960s reflected the cultural and social ethos of the time: integration of international style with local tradition, materials and climate.

Source: http://architectuul.com/architecture/institute-of-foreign-languages

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

KHMER ROUGE

DIAMOND ISLAND

A still from the film “Killing Fields”. During the genocidal years of Khmer Rouge (1975-1979), cultural progress was neglected, appreciation of modernism was abandoned and much of the built environment was wreaked by the army.

Diamond Island Project in Phnom Penh. 2000s: New satellite cities on the city’s peripheral land reflect Cambodia’s desire to compete global cities by allowing production of city to happen through a foreign private developers.

Source: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Killing-Fields-Blu-ray/43498/

Source: http://cam111.com/photonews/2011/05/03/93997.html

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1.2 TRANSITION [SOCIAL] Mobilisation of large groups of people has been present in Cambodia since the days of Khmer Rouge, were the entire city of Phnom Penh was evacuated in one day.

Nowadays, mass mobilisations are inter-city evictions as well as increasing rural-urban migration across the country.

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KHMER ROUGE Khmer Rouge entering Phnom Penh in April 1975. Civilians were forced to leave the city overnight when it was occupied by fighters (Sim 2014)

Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/cambodia-genocide-remarkable-re-enactment-khmer-rouge-atrocities-killing-fields-1449301

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

EVICTIONS

MIGRATION

Forced eviction in Boeung Kak, Phnom Penh, 2000s. Communities living in the lake for years were violently evicted when the lake was bought by private developers. The lake has since disappeared as a consequence of landfills. (AFP 2014)

Rural to urban migration within Cambodia, 2000s. Migration rates have increased dramatically in the last 20 years. Reports from the Ministry of Planning set the percentage of internal migrants at 35% of the total population (Maltoni 2007)

Source: http://www.nicolasaxelrod.com/blog/page/4/

Source: http://www.emahomagazine.com/2012/11/spotlight-on-the-sexually-violent-tim-matsui/

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1.2 TRANSITION [SPATIAL] Metamorphosis of the physical urban environment due to rapid construction of large-scale developments.

Economic pressures translated onto the spatial field.

With increased land prices, massive landfills were viewed as an easy way to create new ground. This, without a doubt, had ecological and social costs.

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BOEUNG KAK 2003 The state of Beoung Kak lake in 2003, before land fill began to take place.

Source: Google Earth

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

BOEUNG KAK 2010

BOEUNG KAK 2015

Boeung Kak lake in 2010 as families living on the lake where evicted and the process of land fill continues.

Boeung Kak lake in 2015 when the land fill process is almost complete and construction on the new development begins.

Source: Google Earth

Source: Google Earth

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1.2 TRANSITION [SPATIAL] High rate of deforestation and burning of rainforests for slash and burn cultivation contributed to the radical metamorphosis of the physical rural environment. Cambodia lost 75% of its forest cover between 1990 and 2005 (Global Witness, 2015). This is not only a huge environmental degradation of the country’s natural resources, but it is also a big illegal logging speculation operated in cooperation between government, military and foreign (Chinese) exporters.

That issue is tightly related to non-transparent processes of land concession. Much of these economic land concessions (ELCs) are evicting rural families from their land, many of which then seek new land in the city.

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Source: http://ki-media.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/europe-seeks-help-in-banning-illegally.html

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

Source: http://www.sihanoukville-cambodiajournal.com/tag/illegal-logging-in-cambodia/

Source: http://nigeldickinson.photoshelter.com/image/I0000Y91Okq7GuxY

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1.3 URBAN REALITIES TODAY Could the change in political discourses lead to economic, spatial, social changes?

Today, twenty-four years after the Paris Agreements, Cambodia is struggling to transition into its own interpretation of ‘liberal democracy’.That is evident in many aspects: lack of open and transparent democratic processes, stable platforms for civil society advocacy, persistent censorship of oppositional or alternative discourses (mainstream media and social media), a high level of corruption, a non-transparent system of land management, etc. It is important to mention these issues, since they are a common characteristic of countries ‘in transition’, and are obstructive to cultivation and inclusion of diversity of alternative voices.

We also understand this transition as the opportunity to trigger transformative forces. This is shown in current changes in Cambodia in which there is a clear opening for alternative discourses at the political level by recognizing marginalised groups through policies related to upgrading, housing and development. We identify these efforts as seeds of change towards cultivating an opening for more equal and inclusive transformative process that should be manifested on the country’s economic, social and spatial level.

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Upgrading, then, is understood as a holistic process that goes beyond the improvement of the material quality at the household level. In order to allow the creation of platforms that foster true advancement at the individual and communal level, the concept of upgrading should be expanded to include the social, political, and economic circumstances that trigger opportunities for progress.

Additionally, we see that this process should not be designed as isolated scenarios at the community and individual level, rather, upgrading should be understood as an all-encompassing process that includes the city as a whole, given the interdependency between the different actors that compose and produce it. Therefore, ‘upgrading’ is achieved through the implementation of processes occurring simultaneously at multiple scales and through the transformation of the relationships between and within different actors.

“Scaling up was increasingly seen as a result of multidimensional, multisectorial, and multiscalar processes; as not a quantitative process but a change in the quality of the city itself and in the nature of its political institutions; and as a political restructuring of urban institutionalities through synergies and contradictions across processes operating at multiple dimensions and scales, including social, economic, politico-institutional, and spatial.”

(Fiori 201, p. 44)

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

Source: Belen Desmaison

Source: http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/protesters-police-clash-cambodia-opposition-rally

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ASIAN NATIONAL CITY

The present reality is one where community, city, national and international actors interact concurrently in an attempt to address the issues of housing and poverty reduction. The following sections will examine some of these efforts further.

The diagram is reflective of this transitional state of Cambodia, where the relationships between actors can often appear complex and confusing, often hindering or complicating efforts.

INVESTORS

UN

WORLD

HLH Co., Ltd

Investment and development of commercial, residential and industrial properties

INVESTORS

BANK

Hoang Anh Gia Lai Vietnamese rubber giant

Unigreen Resource farming, agricultural

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT Municipality Hun Sen

Planning Regulation Building Electric Administration Development Unit Corporation

LOCAL

The diagram to the right attempts to illustrate the wide variety of actors currently acting within the context of Phnom Penh and Cambodia, and their relationship to one another, across a variety of scales.

WORLD

1.4 ACTORS OPERATING IN CAMBODIA

n dia bo am fC o ft Dra

nd La

y lic Po

solidarity for the

GIZ

rural development; health & social security

Municipal Municipal Department Decertment of Public of Land Transportation Management

KHAN SANGKAT

USAid

U.S. Government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential

Community

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

SDI Slum Dwellers International

KOICA

Korea International Cooperation Agency

solidarity for the urban poor federation

UPDF urban

poor

development fund

Cambodia

Cambodial League for the Promotionand Defence of Human Rights

Cambodia

solidarity for the urban poor federation

Community Saving Network

LICADHO

Community Development Foundation

District Network

nt; curity

Community Development Committee

Community Development Committee

District Network

Community Saving Network Cambodia

Community Development Community Committee Saving Network

CHRAC

The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee

East-West Management Institute

JICA

Japan International Cooperation Agency

Cambodia

Community Saving Network

Community Saving Network

ency lobal poverty mocratic potential

Community

Community

Community

Community

Oxfam International

CLEC

Community Legal Education Centre

CWCC

The Cambodian Women in Crisis Center

ADHOC

The Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association

Actors Diagram

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1.5 INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS CIRCULAR NO.3 These are the governmental responses seeking to resolve to the problems present in the current state of transition. Current institutional frameworks for upgrading: - Circular 3 - Housing Policy - Community Development Foundation

For many years Cambodia has experienced land grabbing, which is the purchase of large pieces of land by domestic and mainly international companies (Borras et al, 2011). This is particularly visible in Phnom Penh, where the level of land contestation is higher than in rural areas. Land is disputed between different groups, as the middle class and poorer citizens try to move into the city or remain in the land they have occupied to find better opportunities. The government and private developers want land conveniently located for the development of large scale projects. Given a much higher purchasing power, private developers are able to get hold of contested land for the development of largescale commercial and residential projects, resulting in the eviction or relocation of settlements which were not granted land titles.

In May 2010, The Royal Government of Cambodia implement CIRCULAR 03, a policy that is believed to be the solution that would help urban poor without land titles legalize their occupation on the land that they are living in, allowing them to obtain land tenure security. Furthermore, the document contemplates opportunities for upgrading their settlements by working with UPDF and funded with development funds. The implementation of CIRCULAR 03 also sets up possible platforms of collaboration between communities and local municipalities.

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CIRCULAR 03 is a policy that comes as a response from an existing demand from the urban poor for better protection and representation of them by the state. It seeks to propose alternatives to the existing land management in urban planning.

STEPS TO ACHIEVE CIRCULAR 03: 1.Data collection on actual numbers of temporary settlements 2.Identification, mapping and classification of the sites of temporary settlements 3.Households and population census in temporary settlements 4.Solution finding 5.Coordinated discussion in order to identify solution policies 6.Basic public infrastructures and services to support livelihood 7.Participation of stakeholders in development

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

Circular 03 Goals and Mechanisms 35

1.5.1 CIRCULAR NO.3 CASE STUDY: BATTAMBANG Circular 03 is ongoing in the municipality of Battambang with the support of NGOs that help settlers in community building and onsite-upgrading (L端ke 2004). In Phnom Penh the pilots are under preparation only.

Since 2004, the German Institute for Human Rights (GIHR) has provided advisory support to the municipality and has published some of their findings.

With the support of development workers, surveys were carried out which led to the identification of 13 out of 64 informal settlements. Circular 03 served as a helpful tool and eventually triggered the constructive involvement of the municipality. Communities expressed how they finally feel recognised by authorities through their participation of these processes that will result in them finally being able to obtain legal rights. Additionally, the governor of Battambang said that he the process was a learning experience for him and that he does not longer see eviction of the urban poor as an option since it hinders development of all citizens.

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The work has triggered the interest of other municipalities, such as Sianhoukville and Phnom Penh.

GIHR was able to identify advantages and limitations with the current implementation of Circular 03, which are detailed below: Advantages: 1. Avoids exclusions from a systematic land registration process.

2. Partnership between government institutions, citizens and NGOs. 3. Data collection and its recognition serves as a tool for Spatial planning for land distribution, which could eventually be used for the creation of masterplans as well.

Limitations: 1. Since it has not been fully put into practice, it is difficult to determine the ways in which the policy seeks to operationalise solutions on issues such land, funds and political relations. Additionally, it is still unclear how local municipalities will implement the policy into their institutional objectives.

2. The policy and its implementation provide shortterm solutions to the contestation of land, but there is limited information on the processes that would ensure long-term solutions.

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

Source: Ana Puhac

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1.5.2 HOUSING POLICY The Cambodian government is currently undergoing a state of transition in its definition of housing and the understanding of it as a basic human right. The recent publication of the National Housing Policy in 2014 signifies the recognition of the effectiveness of housing as a necessary tool to alleviate poverty.

Housing upgrading is complexified beyond improving the material conditions of individual households and is understood as a way to improve people’s living conditions and livelihoods. However, there is a need for a further understanding of the notion of housing that contemplates shared or social spaces and expands beyond the individual household by taking into consideration relationships between housing and city.

This gap calls for further analysis and policies to achieve the vision of housing as a social upgrading process, which the government is keen in implementing.

Historical background: Cambodia once had a customary rule of individual ownership of land as long as it was used for productive purposes. This policy was abandoned during the French Regime and was replaced by planning that sought to increase density through the design of residential areas in Phnom Penh and other emerging cities. When the Khmer Rouge Regime took over, cities were abandoned and all properties were nationalised. This practice in which the state owned all the land has been in place even after the regime collapsed — until 1989. In this

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year land ownership was institutionalized so as to secure efficient land privatization and management.

This encouraged speculation, which resulted in a commodification of housing land in the country. Most of the land is currently owned by private developers and upper class citizens. This has led to the inability of the poor to obtain and secure adequate housing due to a lack of saving opportunities resulting from a mal-efficient banking system in the country. Moreover, the 1990s’ economic development of the city of Phnom Penh has attracted migration from rural to the urban, resulting in development of many squatter settlements around the city, and an increased pressure on the land and housing markets.

Housing Upgrading: The government’s recognition of the lack of proper housing at a national scale led to an announcement in 2003 by Prime Minister Hun Sen, in which he introduced the government’s goal to improve a hundred settlements a year at the 5th Anniversary of the Urban Poor Development Fund. The on-going programme seeks to upgrade communities with basic infrastructure, as well as providing training for better income generation, human development and good governance in communities. However, they have managed to upgrade only 30 communities so far, although figures are unclear, which indicates that greater efforts are needed to achieve these goals.

National Housing Policy(NHP): This policy enables households to improve their most personal possessions including their house, with the aim of achieving the national goals of economic development, poverty reduction, and governance.

This policy is designed for all Cambodian regardless of their social status, but places a particular emphasis on low and medium income households and vulnerable groups.

NHP is focused mainly in three areas: institutional development to encourage private sector investment; development of a financial mechanism to allow Cambodians to access housing ownership, including the introduction of housing loans: and development of housing programmes to be included in master planning processes. In prioritising these three areas, NHP encourages collaboration between relevant institutions, and emphasizes the necessity for enabling strategies that allow the participation of local communities.

It is hoped that the NHP will improve transparency and affordability of housing both for private developers and all the individuals as a way to solve housing problems in the country.

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

FRENCH REGIME

LOCALISED HOUSING PRACTICE

KHMER ROUGE

STATE-CONTROLLED HOUSING

1989 LAND OWNERSHIP

1990s

FUTURE

PRIVATISATION

SQUATTERS

NATIONAL HOUSING POLICY

Formal and Informal Housing Patterns throughout history

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1.5.3 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION The Urban Poor Development Fund (UPDF), later renamed the Community Development Foundation (CDF), was founded in 1998 as a joint venture of the Municipality of Phnom Penh, the Solidarity for Urban Poor Federation (SUPF) and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR). Besides the role it plays in creating access to credit for urban poor communities, its significance stems from the way the credit process is designed. By providing different kinds of flexible loans at the community level rather than individually, UPDF strategically utilises limited funds as catalyst to trigger people-driven development processes.

Changing Discourses “This city doesn’t only belong to the rich. It belongs to all of us, so we should all be involved in improving it... Now we have a lot of work to do. We have to sit down and set concrete plans for this upgrading programme together” (Chev Kim Heng, vice-governor of Phnom Penh cited in ACHR, 2004: 9) Following Mitlin and Satterthwaite (2007) thesis that “most aspects of urban poverty reduction depend on changes in the relationships between government agencies and urban poor groups”, The Urban Poor Development Fund, despite being closest to the urban poor communities whose initiatives it supports, is also connected to the government, hence providing “a much-needed balancing mechanism between the sometimes conflicting imperatives of the poor’s need to survive and the country’s need to develop economically (ACHR, 2008: 20).” This is evident in

40

the way UPDF is structured; established by an M.O.U. with the Municipality of Phnom Penh, and governed by a mixed board of community leaders, Municipality, ACHR, NGOs and SDI (ACHR, 2003), UPDF stresses on the processes of co-learning and changing discourses through collaboration and negotiation.

In short, for UPDF finance is a tool to create new space for Cambodia’s urban poor to recognise the strength in their collectivity, to create their own innovative answers to their problems, to negotiate with different levels of government levels to support these initiatives, and to showcase that with a little support, it is possible for the poor to pleasantly stay in the city. (ACHR, 2008) To achieve the above, the working principles of the fund are: mutual benefit, collaboration, flexibility, reaching the poorest, not going away and involvement in city plan. Following those; UPDF recognises seven purposes for the different types of loans it provides: 1) Promoting community driven housing models and setting precedents: Housing funds are used to carry out pilot projects through which different actors come together and learn by doing.

2) Breaking isolation of individual communities: funds around a certain skill such as prahok fish production for example are used to create communities of craft across different spatial communities.

3) Decentralising the federation process: by providing small entrepreneurship funds and placing the decision making power of their allocation in the hands of an urban poor panel at khan level.

4) Building community where there isn’t yet in relocation sites: resettlement sites are often some of the toughest situations especially at their early stages. Food production funds act as both support for the increasingly vulnerable residents but also to initiate some sort of community through saving groups.

5) Seeding other partnerships and leverage sources from other places: Communities use the skills and confidence acquired through taking part in UPDF processes to access funding from other organisations such as UNCHS. 6) Exploring ways of bringing poor communities to city planning process: the City Development Strategy which was instituted of a land availability study.

7) Demonstrating in situ upgrading as a viable alternative to relocation.

(ACHR, 2003)

UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

CDF’s operational structure 41

Challenges and Limitations Though in many ways successful in shifting perceptions and bargaining physical and political space for the urban poor in the city, the conditions within which the fund operates certainly affect its operational capacity.

In 2003, the 5 year mark of the fund, the country’s GDP growth was going from 6.7 to 8.5 and levels of foreign investment estimated at $84,000,000 USD. (World Bank, n.d.) The same year, under such economic pressures inflicting land and urbanisation processes, UPDF was operating with a whole capital of $450,000 USD and only 2 full time staff members.

The reach-out of UPDF activities, though incredibly impressive in comparison to its resources, is yet to become the mainstream discourse for urban development processes in Cambodia. The government, community and collaboration with local universities, academic institutions and the Community Architects Network Cambodia (CAN-CAM) is creating training opportunities for young volunteers to acquire the skills of the community architect. Change, however, remains slow and incremental.

2003

2008

$450,000 UPDF Capital $611,825 UPDF total loans 3,727 households

$1.9 million UPDF Capital $ 2.28 million total loans 8,936 households

Donors Contribution from SUPF Federation, grant from Municipality of Phnom Penh, Prime Minister’s monthly contribution, donors (Selavip, Homeless International, Misereor, Rausing, ACHR-TAP)

Donors Contribution from savings group members, grant from Municipality of Phnom Penh, Prime Minister’s monthly contribution, Cambodian Red Cross, donors (Selavip, Homeless International, Misereor, Rausing, ACHR-TAP)

Operational Costs UPDF has only two fulltime staff members and is assisted by volunteers from poor communities. The budget for all of UPDF’s administrative costs, staff salaries and development support activities is subsidized by a US$ 20,000 annual grant from ACHR (which includes donor funds from Homeless International, Misereor and ACHR-TAP).

Same year: 84 million dollars FDI in Cambodia

Operational Costs UPDF has only a small full-time staff, is assisted by students and volunteers from poor communities and gets free office space from the Municipality of Phnom Penh. All of UPDF’s administrative costs, staff salaries and development support activities (which come to about $5,000 per month) are subsidized by a grant from ACHR (which includes donor funds from Homeless International, Misereor and ACHR-TAP).

Source: ACHR 2003, ACHR 2008

Comparison of UPDF 2003-2008

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UNDERSTANDING CAMBODIA IN TRANSITION

Expanding the the experiences of UPDF nationally, the Community Development Foundation (CDF) was founded in 2012 to support community development in both urban and rural Cambodia. It has been supporting the activities of Community Saving Network of Cambodia (CSNC), Community Development Fund (CDF) at city and provincial levels in collaboration with local authorities and funding agencies focusing on community-led development processes across Cambodia. (CDF, n.d.)

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CONCEPTUALISING TRANSFORMATION Our pre-field research lead to some initial conclusions on the main issues and opportunities already taking place in Cambodia. We then proceeded to formulate definitions of transition and transformation based on these initial observations and our understanding of current and historical academic theories and discussions in order to expand the scope of our entry points for our analysis while on field.

Source: David McEwen

2.1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Transition (n) change from one condition to another (Oxford Dictionary, 2015) In our understanding, transition is the opportunity to trigger transformative forces. What are the present opportunities in Cambodia’s transition that could trigger an alternative trajectory of development?

Despite the great challenges that the country is facing, recently there have been visible signs of transformative change in Cambodia, illustrating a small, but hopeful opening for alternative discourses at the political level.

On the side of civil society, the change of the dominant discourse was evident in the 2013 elections massprotests, and on the government’s side, it is the active recognition of marginalised groups in policies related to housing and settlement upgrading. We see this as a positive convergence of typically polarised stakeholders towards an opening for a more equal and inclusive transformative process.

Hence, we have formulated a vision of transformation as a process that must not only challenge the present status quo of the country’s development, but fundamentally recalibrate the order of the politics through invoking what Rancière calls le partage du sensible (“the partition of the perceptible”) (Rancière & Corcoran, 2010) and what Chantal Mouffe refers to as police (Mouffe, 1996).

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Rancière’s aesthetic of politics proposes the existence of borders between spaces and times, between the visible and the invisible, and speech and noise. Applied to a political context, it suggests the existence of borders between legitimate and illegitimate people and forms of activities (e.g. “illegal occupation/occupiers of land”).

The partition of the perceptible happens when these borders are moved and reconfigured. Translated into practice, Rancière argues that political change occurs when the urban poor (e.g. landless, evictees, squatters) emancipate, and through that process, disrupt the specific social or political horizon by using modalities of sensory experience. Tools for disruption can be art or a new political language (e.g. a specific discourse developed by a social movement or a marginalised group to create visibility) (Rancière & Corcoran, 2010).

The act of dissensus, thus, breaks divisions between visible and invisible and opens the new, unauthorised and the disordered socio-political stage on which marginalised discourses, activities and people stand as equals together with their previous superiors. Through autonomous artistic practices (architecture being one of them), invisible can become visible, and the noise transforms into speech.

We understand dissensus, as a “positive conflict”, a driving force of collaboration in the larger process of convergence of polarised parties. Here, we turn to the work of Schneider and Miessen, who discern how the difference between cooperation and collaboration is crucial for transformation: “Cooperation necessarily takes place in a client-server architecture [...] Collaboration on the contrary presumes rhizomatic structures where knowledge grows exuberantly and proliferates in a rather unforeseeable fashion (Schneider in Miessen, 2010). It is this collaborative structure that presents, according to Schneider, the most fertile site of revolutionary potential. It is where change can occur, frameworks of difference can flourish, and the creativity of the multiplicity can generate productive practices.”

(Miessen, 2010)

CONCEPTUALISING TRANSFORMATION

“In contrast to cooperation, collaboration is driven by complex realities rather than romantic notions of a common ground or commonality. It is an ambivalent process constituted by a set of paradoxical relationships between co-producers who affect each other.�

Florian Schneider (in Miessen, 2010)

Source: Belen Desmaison

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2.2 TRANSFORMATION & PRINCIPLES From this, we devise transformation as:

Source: Ana Puhac

48

our

own

definition

of

The process of cultivating a plurality of discourses and knowledge that challenge the hierarchical dichotomy of the powerful and powerless by activating the circumstances and spaces for collaboration where alternative realities can be imagined, negotiated and realised.

CONCEPTUALISING TRANSFORMATION

CREATING MUTUAL KNOWLEDGE

through:

Collaboration - ‘conflictual participation’ with ‘friendly enemies’ at the intersection of continuously negotiated common goals.

Transparency - democratisation of knowledge where information is openly shared and disseminated.

PUTTING KNOWLEDGE INTO ACTION

through:

Autonomy - of the process & products of self-development. A sense of responsibility.

Visibility - of alternative discourses for recognition, inclusion & replicability (visibility of learning process, recognition of other stories)

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CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION In this section we analysed the sites that we visited in Cambodia through the four stated lenses of transition to investigate the main issues and potentialities in each location. This, in turn, helped us uncover areas for possible proposals that aimed to trigger our understanding of transformation. Thus, we tested in practice the theories and observations formulated remotely in London on the ground, testing their relevance and refining them with new knowledge obtained on site. With this we were able to produce proposals that were specific to particular contexts and addressed the unique characteristics present at each site.

ON-SITE

OFF-SITE

Process Diagram

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3.0 STUDY SITES We were given three sites to study, each representing particular realities present across Cambodia. It is through the analysis of the particular context of each site that we were able to comprehend the different dynamics taking part in these transcending issues.

Boeung Veng Reik Chamroeun, in Stueng Saen city, portrays the relationship between the poor and local authorities at the provincial level, where pressures on land are not as high as those seen in Phnom Penh.

Anlong Kngan in Phnom Penh, represents communities that have been relocated from the centre of Phnom Penh to the peripheral land of the city, and how in the process of developing a new settlement partake in socio-spatial inequality among themselves. .

Lastly, Boeung Choeuk Meanchey Thmey II, also in Phnom Penh is a community that embodies the results of the rapid development and growth of the urban fabric and the consequences, social and environmental, that sites are experiencing due to construction around them.

Location of three sites

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CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Belen Desmaison

53

3.1 SITE PROFILE - STUENG SAEN CITY Stueng Saen is the capital of province of Kampong Thom, 3.5 hours away from Phnom Penh in central Cambodia. It sits halfway in between the capital and Siem Reap, making the city a transitory stop for those traveling by car between these two areas. It has a population of 30,000 inhabitants (NIS 2008) and relies mainly on agricultural activities like the production of rice as well as mining and fishing activities. Given its proximity to the Stueng Saen river, the city is prone to flooding.

As part of a wider, national, plan, Stueng Saen is actively involved and participating in the ‘Clean City’ competition held by the ministry of tourism to attract more tourists by promoting a ‘clean’ and ‘green’ image of cities across the nation (MTC 2013). Hence, this city can be indicative of themes present in other smaller cities in Cambodia with aims and visions that differ from those of Phnom Penh.

We worked on one site, Boeung Veng Reik Chamroeun, located near the city centre. This site allowed an exploration of alternatives for relocation processes as well as opportunities for collaboration between institutional authorities and communities, as shall be explored in the following pages.

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Local context

Wider context

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Belen Desmaison

55

3.1.1 BOEUNG VENG REIK CHAMROEUN Synergetic collaboration between citizens and local authorities This small community of 31 houses is located on a canal near the central market of Stueng Saen. They recently formed a savings group and have been working closely with CDF in order to obtain land titles. However, due to their location directly on top of the canal, it is nearly impossible to obtain it. We, therefore, assessed ways in which they could find alternative locations not far away from the city by forming partnerships with the municipality to negotiate with private land owners. Additionally, after meeting with the community, representatives of CDF, and members of the municipality, we worked together to identify common interests and goals and ways in which they can collaborate with each other to achieve them.

Community plan

56

Source: Belen Desmaison

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Belen Desmaison

57

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] Lack of transparency of information at cadastral and commune level Unclear Urban Development Strategy/No Masterplan (lack of long-term vision) [P] Willingness of municipality to help community to negotiate with private sector CDF wants to expand community savings network

58

POLITICAL

Source: Vishakha Jha

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Belen Desmaison

59

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] Not everyone is aware/has joined the savings group [P] Already existing alternative forms of income generation (recycling, cricket catching)

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ECONOMIC

Source: Belen Desmaison

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Belen Desmaison

61

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] Unclear definition of ‘community’ [P] Community’s willingness to collaborate with each other, us and the municipality.

62

SOCIAL

Source: Belen Desmaison

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Belen Desmaison

63

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] Lack of proper sanitation/ water supply/ flooding/ waste management [P] Availability of underused land owned by the private sector near the city center.

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SPATIAL

Source: Belen Desmaison

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Belen Desmaison

65

OPPORTUNITIES

PROPOSAL 1 Working towards a common goal

- Municipality’s vision of ‘clean city’ matches community’s vision of ‘clean community’: they can work together to achieve common goal

Findings ways in which the municipality’s goals to achieve a ‘clean city’ are already occurring on a smaller scale at the community level and promote and expand these practices.

- Opportunity to open alternative ways in which to find adequate land for communities located at an acceptable distance from the city

CREATING KNOWLEDGE Collaboration through finding permanent platforms that bring actors from different spheres together to negotitate and dispute their interests, in order to produce new knowledge and find alternative solutions.

PUTTING KNOWLEDGE INTO ACTION Autonomy is achieved since it is people themselves formulating and appropriating the process. The vision of a clean city is not only given and carried out by the municipality but by all citizens, generating a sense of responsibility and ownership towards the shared space.

The collaborative work between the municipality and communities is physically manifested when the projects are implemented, thus becoming visible for other inhabitants of the city, inviting them to initiate similar projects. Additionally, the community can promote the formation of a network in order to expand the process.

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CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

PROPOSAL 2 Alternative processes for land tenure Communities are able to recognise available land within the city and cooperate with municipality, CDF and CAN-Cam to provide proposals for its acquisition CREATING KNOWLEDGE Negotiations between community members, the municipality, private landowners, CDF & CAN-Cam in order to originate funding and settle the price for land acquisition.

Availability of and trust in information provided from all parties involved is crucial in order to guarantee a process that is just for all.

PUTTING KNOWLEDGE INTO ACTION People claiming their right to be in the city by leading the search and actively seeking to appropriate land within the urban fabric.

The process can be translated into guidelines so that it can be not only repeated but also institutionalised, thus promoting the inclusion of citizens in decisionmaking processes.

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3.2 SITE PROFILE - PHNOM PENH Phnom Penh, with a population of 1.5 million inhabitants, is the capital of Cambodia and is located in the South of the country. The Royal Palace, one of the city’s most significant buildings, is located on the site where three rivers – Tonle Sap, Mekong & Bassac – meet.

The presence of water bodies is present throughout the city with the existence of countless canals and lakes (Boeungs in Khmer). This makes the city particularly vulnerable to flooding, which is also prevalent in other areas of the country.

In addition to the Royal Palace, the city is home to the seat of government, making Phnom Penh the centre of political and economic activity. This is made particularly clear with the presence of large-scale infrastructure and property development projects managed by private foreign investment, like Diamond Island. Due to these recent developments, Phnom Penh’s urban area has grown fourfold since 1979, when the city was reoccupied after the retreat of the Khmer Rouge. This trajectory has caused enormous pressures in the land market with numerous instances arising of relocations and evictions of urban poor communities, who number around 100,000 inhabitants, with an expected annual growth of 20,000 per year according to a government report (Channyda 2012).

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Two sites were studied in Phnom Penh: Boeung Chouk Meanchey and Sen Reik. These two sites reflect tensions and issues found throughout other sites in the capital, as will be illustrated in the following pages.

Sites within Phnom Penh

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Saki Maruyama

69

3.2.1 ANLONG KNGAN Self-sufficient resettlement site Anlong Kngan resettlement community is a site in Samsok District of Phnom Penh city. It is a relocation site of nine communities, most of whom were relocated to the area due to two big fires that occurred in their previous informal settlements on banks of the Bassac River. While the area of Anlong Kngan was reserved only for the residents who were fire victims, in the process of resettlement a piece of land was occupied by squatters in search for home. Today, the squatters living on the piece of land that is in ownership of the local hospital are waiting for land title, and their housing is significantly more precarious than of the surrounding area.

Community plan 70

Source: Giorgio Talocci

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Ana Puhac

71

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [P]Khan is open to the idea of collaboration, demonstrating a willingness to work with communities in wider works or projects

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POLITICAL

Source: Ana Puhac

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Ana Puhac

73

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] Savings groups without clear priorities nor a common vision.

Garment factories in the area exploit workers [P] Job opportunities at garment factories nearby.

Other income generation activities developing due to increasing population in area

74

ECONOMIC

Source: Ana Puhac

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Ana Puhac

75

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] Unclear definition of ‘community’. Usually defined by shared status of ‘informal,’being part of the same savings group or by the political orientation of the community leader. No sense of community based on the geographical proximity and shared public spaces.

[P] Importance of strengthening social networks to achieve economic progress of the community (evident in the “resettlement” area)

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SOCIAL

Source: Ana Puhac

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Ana Puhac

77

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] The whole resettlement site is far away from jobs and services, which is a huge drive of people selling the land in the settlement [P] Spaces, like the big market, that exist in the “squatter� part of the resettlement area are mutually used by the residents both from outside and inside of the informal settlement.

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SPATIAL

Source: Witee Wisuthumporn

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Ana Puhac

79

OPPORTUNITIES - Possibility to strengthen the already-existing savings groups.

- The government’s desire to decentralize responsibilities offers opportunities for greater community participation in decision-making processes such as the establishment of housing offices on the district-level.

- Utilize the presence of garment factories to lobby for better working conditions, labor rights and the formation of labor unions.

- Disseminate awareness of policies like Circular 3 and the National Housing Policy to develop collective ownership of land.

- The understanding of nature of low income community and their behavior could be developed to form up better policies that tackle the issue of land security and community upgrading.

PROPOSAL Activating self-sufficiency and sense of belonging Our proposal is twofold: one is a series of microscale upgrading initiatives that are feasible for the community to start self-upgrading. The other proposal deals with a structural change on the city-wide level, and is suggesting a model for upgrading that includes already existing efforts coming from the government (Circular 03 policy) and the communities (saving groups). We propose that those existing efforts come together more effectively through a program that, on the government’s side would provide small loans for communal land purchase, and on the community’s side, an more elaborated, focused and prioritized road map for communal upgrading.

CREATING KNOWLEDGE By identifying a common vision between the government (at different scales) and community, the proposal seeks to enable instances of collaboration for achieving these shared aims.

Opportunity to create platforms for the dissemination and production of new information by recognising the value of already-existing knowledge at the community level. This should occur through partnerships between governmental institutions, NGOs and community networks.

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CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

PUTTING KNOWLEDGE INTO ACTION Activating self-sufficient attitude by proposing micro scale self upgrading alternatives.

Autonomous process of self-upgrading will make visible the community’s potential

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3.2.2 BOEUNG CHOEUK MEANCHEY THMEY II Environmental and social consequences of landfills This small community of 34 households is located within Phnom Penh’s new district (khan) Chpar Ampov. The community has been living on the public school owned land for almost 30 years. As the city grew around it, new real-estate developments and various landfills in the area worsened the flooding situation and subsequently health, safety and living conditions with drowning houses and dangerous pathways. We, therefore, conducted with the community a documentation of its history which was also a documentation of the landfill and flooding dynamics. Additionally, the community was able to capitalise on its high level of cohesion and active savings group to engage in a conversation around the reblocking and coming up with proposals for their settlemen master plan.

Community plan 82

Source: Tasneem Nagi

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Tasneem Nagi

83

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I]New Khan established in 2013 which split up a larger khan into 2 smaller units.

A new master plan is being drafted for the Khan, with infrastructure and environment defined as top priorities.

POLITICAL

[P]CDF has already taken interest in the community, as well as STT. Khan was considering the community as pilot project for on-site upgrading.

84

Source: Tasneem Nagi

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Tasneem Nagi

85

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] Community used to depend on planting water lilies as a source of livelihoods, which is not longer an available option.

[P] Most community members work as construction workers.

Expansion of pathways into inner houses of the community to encourage small businesses.

Strong savings group.

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ECONOMIC

Source: Tasneem Nagi

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Tasneem Nagi

87

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] Already existing alliances at the community level and savings group were split into two with the creation of the new Khan.

SOCIAL

[P] Strong sense of community expressed by a common desire for a shared public space.

88

Source: Tasneem Nagi

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Tasneem Nagi

89

ISSUES AND POTENTIALITIES [I] Increased pressures on land.

New major real estate developments around the area.

Dangerous pathways to access houses Polluted water conditions.

More frequent and higher levels of flooding.

SPATIAL

[P] Installation of the new drainage system/ expansion of the canal.

Located near National Road Number 1 great connections to the rest of the city.

90

Source: Tasneem Nagi

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Tasneem Nagi

91

OPPORTUNITIES Inwards (within the community) - Creating new shared spaces at the inside of the settlement would allow less fortunate houses in the community to be able to access/create small business, thus lessening the inequalities currently existing between community members.

- Exploring alternatives to individual land titles, which are currently regarded as the ultimate goal with no further vision or other options.

Outwards (between the community and other actors) - The possibility of using community maps and alreadyexisting information and knowledge (if properly documented and registered) in the creation of the master plan for the newly established Khan.

- Triggering conversations about the environmental impact of landfills and flooding: challenging powerful/ powerless discourses around landfills and surface water.

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PROPOSAL Creating a shared vision for Chabar Ampov Our proposal is twofold: first to get the community members to come up with a collective vision for their community, the second is to coordinate the community’s updated documentation of the area’s history with the khan’s master plan being created by the local administration.

CREATING KNOWLEDGE Collaboration between Khan and communities to produce master plan.

Collaboration between community members to come up with a vision for what they want.

Collaboration between communities that share the same problems (canal communities/flooded communities/ etc) to find possible solutions.

Collaboration between NGOs (CDF/CSNC/etc) and communities to produce new forms of knowledge.

Incorporation of community efforts into the local Khan’s developing master-plan ensure transparency and participation in the shaping of the district’s present and future.

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

PUTTING KNOWLEDGE INTO ACTION Mobilisation of the community to discuss and negotiate a plan around a new community masterplan as well as resolutions to environmental issues seek to encourage a sense of autonomy.

Making available to the local authorities the rich fountain of information (historical, technical, etc.) nascent within the community through a varying of methods of representation.

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3.3 REFINING PRINCIPLES While studying each site separately we were able to identify issues, potentialities, and opportunities within each particular context. Additionally, we were able to test and observe the ways in which our principles collaboration, transparency, autonomy and visibilitywere already present in reality and ways in which they could be further developed and encouraged.

These observations were then analysed once again to identify cross-cutting themes that need to be addressed not only in these three sites, that represent particular realities repeated in other sites in Cambodia, but also at a national scale. We now present a refined definition of each principle as well as key findings built on ground that will guide the proposals to achieve these principles.

While some of the themes explained in this section may not be present or relevant in all sites, they serve as references to set up priorities for future interventions.

They are not presented in any particular order, since we understand that the importance of each guideline will vary depending on particular contexts.

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CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Belen Desmaison

95

CREATING MUTUAL KNOWLEDGE

through:

Collaboration - Collaboration through finding permanent platforms that bring actors from different spheres together to negotiate and dispute their interests, in order to produce new knowledge and find alternative solutions.

Transparency - To achieve just outcomes during negotiations, it becomes necessary to have open and available information form all actors involved. In addition to inculcating and reinforcing mutual trust, the availability of information will ease the dissemination for the implementation of similar processes in wider scales.

96

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Belen Desmaison

97

PUTTING KNOWLEDGE INTO ACTION

through:

Autonomy - Achieved by people taking action into their own hands in order to improve their lives rather than passively waiting for the government or other agencies to provide solutions. This agency is accompanied with responsibility and sense of ownership of the process and outcomes. People should form strategic alliances with other actors in order to use their knowledge and expertise to achieve the best possible results.

Visibility - Understood not only as people becoming visible to others through their agency because of their desire to have their voices heard but also as the physical manifestation of processes of collaboration and autonomy. Both enable opportunities for replicability.

98

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Source: Tasneem Nagi

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3.4 KEY FINDINGS Communities and local authorities agree on upgrading goals, but have to discuss on how to achieve them The city vision formulated by authorities has similar priorities than the citizens’ community vision. They can and should work together to achieve these common goals. This can be achieved by the inclusion of citizen’s voices and participation in the realisation of a master plan, document that is still in progress in most sites visited. This inclusion would further reflect the government’s current efforts to achieve institutional decentralization in addition to the willingness that local official expressed in collaborating with communities in their jurisdiction. Additionally, the objectives defined in both Circular 3 and the National Housing Policy should be incorporated in future masterplans.

Negotiations with private developers and private land owners Local governmental institutions should actively seek to become intermediaries between the private sector and communities, given the expressed desire to include the private sector in upgrading schemes (NHP 2014).

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Savings groups as a social tool Understood as more than a source of mutual economic support, savings groups can trigger deeper social relations between their members as well as serve as a tool to trigger communal agency in the search for land and housing rights.

Existing income generation activities Activities that generate income such as recycling, construction and cricket catching, just to name a few, were observed in all three sites. They portray numerous abilities communities have that can be further developed and even incorporated in institutional policies since they help to achieve goals.

CONTEXTUALISING AND REFINING TRANSFORMATION

Unclear definition of ‘Community’ In all three sites, as well as in other areas we visited during the trip, there was an overall unclear definition of community, which was based on different shared characteristics: members of saving groups, living in the same area, seeking land titles, collectively managing resources, etc.

A more eloborate definition of ‘community’ not only within members but also to present themselves to other actors such as governmental institutions & CDF would help not only for organizational purposes but it would also ease the formation of common goals that go beyond obtaining land titles. Additionally, stronger social bonds would help to lessen inequalities within the communities.

Environmental degredation Economic and land development is leading to environmental degradation, as is currently the case in landfill areas as well in the pollution of canals.

Alternative forms of land tenure Finding available land owned by the private sector or introducing land-sharing schemes could alleviate current pressures on land and the relocation of communities away from the city, which disrupts their livelihoods.

Disaster-risk prevention All upgrading projects and policies, as well as ongoing municipal masterplans lack guidelines and standards for reducing the hazardous effects of natural occurrences like flooding.

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ACTIVATING SPACES OF CONVERGENCE After observing and testing our theories on the ground and achieving a better understanding of how they are manifested in reality, we were able to synthesize key findings in each site that were representative of the situations found in other areas of the country. With this, we were able to refine a vision of transformation for Cambodia that could be accomplished by achieving overarching aims identified in the analysis of the previous chapter. This refined vision enabled us to produce three proposals that seek to trigger transformative instances at all scales that can be implemented not only on the sites studied but at a national scale.

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4.1 TRANSFORMATION REFINED After working on field, we have revised our vision of transformation to more appropriately respond to everyday realities in Cambodia. The purpose of this vision is to foster existing efforts from different actors seeking social justice.

The process of cultivating a plurality of discourses and knowledge that challenge the hierarchical dichotomy of the powerful and powerless by activating the circumstances and spaces for collaboration where alternative realities can be imagined, negotiated and realised.

Our critical vision of transformation is defined as the creation of spaces in which transformative processes are enabled. Spaces, understood here not only as physical but social manifestations. The inevitable initial step in that transformative process is a disruption of the present forces through dissensus, as argued by Rancière (Rancière & Corcoran, 2010). The greatest opportunities for transformation lie in this rupture between politics and design — opportunities that can reorder power relations between different groups and create new objects/subjects that change the dominant perception of “the visible”. The autonomous activation, although radical doesn’t have to be dramatic.

It can mean a series of small tactful projects that make communities visible, and shift their citizenship status from right “recipients” to right “holders”. Visibility can open platforms for collaboration, a principle that fosters already existing institutional and grassroots efforts, thus creating multiscalar engagement with contemporary urban challenges in Cambodia.

This process of re-defining transformative potentials has led us to develop the following proposals and an overall vision of transformation.

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ACTIVATING SPACES OF CONVERGENCE

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Source: Belen Desmaison

4.2.1 SELF-UPGRADING THROUGH COMMUNITY SAVING GROUPS [01] ANALYTICAL FOUNDATION Anlong Kngan is highly politically contested site. The government frames it as a quite “successful” example of resettlement, since virtually all the informal residents evicted by the fire got an individual, spacious plot of land of seven by fifteen meters. However, the actual ramifications of this resettlement are degenerative to Phnom Penh’s urban fabric, and are multifold. In our response, we chose to respond to one in particular, issue and that is the emergence of socio-spatial inequality within new informal settlements, It is very common that in the resettlement processes around Phnom Penh squatters move in on a residual piece of land, which also happened in the case of Anlong Kngan. That has resulted in a big social and spatial discrepancy between the squatters and the fire evictees, and it is what we want to tackle in our response.

The physical and social potentials of the neighborhood are compromised by the resettlement’s proximity to job and services which translates into both groups within resettlement being split in two way of economicsocial networks: the residents with the land title rely on their external social networks they had prior to the resettlement to find job in cities, and the squatters are organized in social networks based on saving groups.

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It is evident how difference in the status of a land title is reflected in the economic power among the squatters and the land title holders in the resettlement area. The corollary of that incohesion is manifested spatially: the “grid” of the resettlement plots is confronted by the “square” where the squatters reside. The area of land title holders (the grid) suffers what we recognise as urban solipsism — the households along the grid are undeniably investing resources and time solely into their own individual parcels of land, leaving streets and spaces around them that are in no one’s ownership in the community — degraded. In the same time, the squatter residents, locked in a “square” of extremely dense and organically ordered shanty houses have no incentives in the public spaces that relate to the outer “grid” except from the single green open space that is on the borderline between their informal settlement and the “grid.”

Urban ‘Grid’

ACTIVATING SPACES OF CONVERGENCE

ALTERNATIVE DISCOURSE Our proposal deals with the opportunity that exists in new settlements, pertaining to its social cohesion and inequality gap. Specifically, we see the space for creation of alternative discourses between “the powerful” and “the powerless”, “the visible” and “the invisible” in the momentum of new social formations in new settlements. Although evidently present, socio-spatial inequality gap has not so strongly established, and that is what moment when mobilization can take place to alleviate this trend of negative urban stratification.

Source: Ana Puhac

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Presently, there is a well-developed, nationwide savings groups network in Cambodia. We suggest that they can become not only a stronger financial tool for physical self-upgrading of the whole resettlement area, but also a stronger social tool for mobilization of a bigger variety of residents. Using Anlong Kngan as an example of numerous forced evictions in Phnom Penh, we illustrate specific tactics that can help the new ad hoc communities develop stronger social and spatial cohesion after resettlement and recuperate disintegrated urban fabric of the resettlement.

1. Involve everyone Presently, savings groups are limited to the squatters who are in the fear of further eviction and have less developed social networks in the city that could help them in finding stable, formal jobs. Apart from the system of savings group where communities save for soft-loans and work with NGOs, we suggest for neighborhoods to initiate direct savings amongst themselves, where a bigger variety of residents will be able to participate - residents with and without land title, home owners and renters, higher and lower income households, etc. These direct savings can be income based, to enable equity in financial participation. This would not only increase the net-sum for the savings, but foster interaction between different households and mobilize them to think about their households as a part of wider and diverse context.

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2. Create a vision for community’s upgrading plan and a roadmap and connect it to the saving fund What would be the incentive to participate in such a projects, especially if there is a common issue with trust among savings organizers in the community and wealthier households whose livelihood s don’t need small scale upgrading? What can illustrate the benefit for both the individual households and the communal spaces as a whole, is a planned, mapped and elaborated vision for a short and a long term upgrading, accompanied by a roadmap for specific goals. Although understandable, focus of savings group within squatters without land title focus their energy on upgrading of only the “informal” part of the settlement. However, the case of Anlong Kngan shows that spatial limits of savings groups are spatially visible outside of the scope of the informal settlement: communally shared spaces in the resettlements, used by both group of residents, in a degraded and neglected state.

4. Separate savings branches for individual and communal upgrading (job generation) There are numerous ways to save in savings groups.

However, we noticed that often in communities there are no permanently and clearly separated funds for only individual and only for community upgrading.

Why is that important? It helps to households to plan

more effectively distribution of their savings for their own house and for a for example, upgrading a road. Establishing a fund for communal upgrading can also create intra-community jobs for delivering alternative services and create circular economy.

For example, the problem of garbage in the shared spaces can be addressed by employing a team from the community, who would be paid from the fund for the shared upgrading. Small teams could be more effective in collection, and would generate circular economy within the settlement.

5. Form interest groups/working groups though savings (different social networks) One important method that can particularly use the finance as a tool for strengthening social cohesion is formation of interest-based savings groups. There are always residents with shared specific interests, skills and ideas within it. On roadmap to achieving the grander vision, there are smaller projects that can take place and strengthen the community’s social networks. For example, there could be an interest group of mothers to invest savings for a community day care centre so that they can work in their small businesses during the day. Likewise, there could be a group that buys a van or a bus and organizes shared rides to Phnom Penh city and help reduce time and costs of commuting.

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4.2.2 ALTERNATIVE LAND DISCOURSES [02] ANALYTICAL FOUNDATION “I can’t upgrade my house until I get a land title because I can get evicted in the future” - Community member, Beoung Chung Meanchy Thmey II

quantified and categorized solely in economic terms without taking into consideration the multiplicity of existing values and dynamics. There is, therefore, an unclear understanding of the true costs (economic and social), both for governmental institutions and for the city itself, of relocating settlements in far away areas.

Land tenure was understood as the number one priority in all three sites that we worked on and in most sites that we visited. Thus, we see it as an entry point to other problematics that need to be identified by both individuals and the government to comprehend land tenure as a tool for social upgrading. Presently in Cambodia, the options to obtain land tenure for the urban poor are very limited: they either do not obtain it and are evicted and/or relocated to areas far away from the city centre (Anlong Kngan & Boeung Veng Reik Chamroeun), which results in the disruption of their lives and social ties; or they go through a long, tedious process to obtain a land title (Beoung Chuk Meanchy Thmey II), while not necessarily improving their living conditions. Both of these options lead to a dependency on the government, hindering the desire of housing upgrading due to a perceived lack of security and may narrow or inhibit the generation of alternative forms of land security. Additionally, seeing individual land tenure as the sole solution, current policies discourage the formation of communal efforts. Moreover, land is

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Source: Belen Desmaison

ACTIVATING SPACES OF CONVERGENCE

ALTERNATIVE DISCOURSE “land security has to move beyond private property rights and integrate other forms of land access rights through spatial planning�

- Sem 2014

We have therefore, identified three main lenses of information that should be not only available for but produced by communities seeking land security, working in collaboration with governmental institutions as well as ACHR, CDF and NGOs.

We see the necessity to promote alternatives to the current understanding of land tenure, both at citizen level as well as at the policy level, to challenge this dependency and open up possibilities for greater collaboration within individuals and between individuals and governmental institutions. To achieve this we believe that it is crucial to have a much higher level of transparency on issues related to land, particularly costs, availability of land within or in close proximity to urban areas, and possibilities of collective acquisition of land.

These alternatives open up the possibility of peopleled approaches to finding available and suitable land, as well as spaces for the co-production of information (mapping, surveys, cost research) that seek to open up platforms of discussion and negotiation between communities and between communities and governmental institutions. Moreover, these alternative processes can also be shared with other communities and can be adopted in institutional policies both at the local and at the national level.

Source: Belen Desmaison

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Identifying costs of relocation settlements - land as more than a commodity If citizens are aware of the costs of providing new infrastructure in new sites in addition to the costs of acquiring land nearer the city centre and the social and economic costs of their daily activities within the urban fabric, they would have more leverage in negotiating possible alternatives beyond relocation by showing how there are more cost-effective ways. a) Identify cost of building infrastructure in far away relocation site b) Identify cost of land near where community is currently located c) Identify the hidden incomes of economic and social activities generated by the community. This will allow communities to show city authorities the loses the city will face if community is removed from the city.

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Identification and analysis of community eviction risk - visibility and awareness of alternatives to current vulnerable situation Having a clear understanding of how the current risk the community is facing at the moment as well as the availability of contacting other communities in a similar situation and having knowledge of available and affordable land near them is of crucial importance so that communities are aware of alternative options and are not dependent solely on the government. We therefore think is important to not only produce this information but also having it visible available and widespread across communities at risk. a) Produce an overall city map of communities at risk. b) Produce a map of available land in the city c) Use different media to disseminate through different media: posters, internet, flyers. Accessible to communities.

Collective land acquisition - obtaining land security through people-led initiatives We propose opening up the possibility of acquiring available land that is privately owned near the city centre, either solely paid with the formation of a savings group or with the aid of loans and grants obtained from CDF, ACHR or other possible donors like NGOs. This alternative is grounded on our observations in Stueng Saen, where members of CDF had already identified privately owned land located near the city centre that could be bought by communities in savings groups. This scenario opened up the possibility of community-led identification of available land and working collaboratively with local authorities, private land-owners, CDF, ACHR and NGOs for its acquisition. Although this alternative is more suitable for cities with a similar scale than Stueng Saen, where economic and social land pressures are not as high as in Phnom Penh and where the availability of underdeveloped land is much higher and prices are more accessible, it is still possible to provide similar solutions within the capital city, as a study carried out by CDF of available privately owned land shows (ACHR 2004). In cases like Phnom Penh and Battambang, alternatives to collective land acquisition could include occupations with a higher density and/or the creation of high-rise buildings.

ACTIVATING SPACES OF CONVERGENCE

a) Community should seek information and discuss with local authorities about the possibilities of obtaining land titles where they are before they commit to upgrading b) A ‘community’ and/or savings group is formed between those who wish to acquire land. c) Community finds an appropriate land through onsite survey d) Community presents land to municipality.

Municipality agrees its a good option. Municipality helps to contact owner. e) Land-owner, community and municipality negotiate for a price. Land can be bought or rented.

i. CDF/ACHR/Ministry of land could help with loans or grants

ii. Municipality/Ministry of land plan needed infrastructure in new land f) Land is acquired. CAN-Cam helps community with design. Not individually owned but registered to community as a whole.

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4.2.3 INTER-CONNECTED CITY: MASTER PLANS AND LOCAL KNOWLEDGE [03] ANALYTICAL FOUNDATION “The flooding keeps getting worse, before the water flew in that direction but now it’s blocked.”

Community member, Beoung Chung Meanchy Thmey II Our research and field experience have both demonstrated the interconnectivity of the issues of urban poor communities with those of the city. The expansion of urban poverty is but a manifestation of unsustainable and unjust city development processes.

This was evident when the process of documenting the history of one urban poor community unraveled the socio-ecological implications of over 20 years of economic, infrastructure and real estate development around the district. In addition to highlighting the correlation between landfills associated with development projects and the increased severity of flooding hence affecting living conditions and livelihoods, the history of the community also provided critical insight into the natural drainage systems and illustrated local knowledge on dealing with water. This brought attention to seemingly obvious limitations of a costly currently underway government-led privatelyfunded drainage system.

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Source: Ana Puhac

ACTIVATING SPACES OF CONVERGENCE

ALTERNATIVE DISCOURSE “Most aspects of urban poverty reduction depend on changes in the relationships between government agencies and urban poor groups” (Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2007: 498) The isolated ‘upgrading’ of urban poor settlements, disconnected from master city plans and visions, does not only shy away from addressing structural problems and root causes of urban issues, hence failing to provide sustainable solutions, it also falsely implies poor settlements as the ‘problematic’ zones within the urban fabric that, in order to achieve the ‘upgraded city’, need to be neutralised. This is particularly the kind of hierarchical dichotomy that our vision of transformation seeks to challenge.

We strongly believe that city-wide upgrading essentially requires rethinking the city as one, interconnected and codependent with all its parts, not only in the problematics but also in the solutions. Our field experience unraveled that officials and urban poor communities alike prioritise infrastructure and environment as major concerns when dealing with the urban realities of Cambodia.

We acknowledge those as viable entry points where the city can be looked at as a whole rather than isolated ‘problematic’ zones.

It became clear through conversations with local authority officials at the district and municipal level that resources, particularly financially, were very limited. These limitations have proven particularly pronounced in the process of designing district and city level master-plans as the information used to inform these plans is often incomplete, inaccurate or originating from a paucity of sources. On the other hand, Cambodia’s urban poor with the help of local NGOs such as the Community Development Foundation have been creating substantial amounts of information about the conditions of their settlements. The maps and data urban poor communities are producing are a wealth of information that transcends the limits of their areas they inhibit. Communities living by canals, as an example, have been not only observing but living the fluctuation in flooding levels and the limitations of drainage systems, which can inform city-wide infrastructure interventions. By disregarding it, the government is voluntarily overlooking a rich readily-produced source of information they have been unsuccessfully seeking.

(Gilbert 1992: 85) By recognising local efforts to resolve common issues, good ideas and solutions can be celebrated and shared, offering alternative opportunities for upgrading to typical state-led projects.

These efforts should not only seek to be replicated on a larger scale, they should aim to be incorporated into formal institutional frameworks.

The efforts of the Community Development Foundation aiming at expanding the space for urban poor communities’ involvement in city plans are not to be disregarded. Notably, the City Development Strategy including the land availability study, the various urban poor settlement surveys and subsequent dissemination and deliberation of findings. (ACHR, 2004) Nonetheless, we see great potential in coordinating master plans, particularly infrastructure plans at district levels, with local knowledge. We suggest the following strategies to reinforce and expand these spaces of manoeuvre.

Beyond shedding light on the urban challenges, localised forms of people knowledge in addressing those proved both innovative and realistic. The “reaction of poor to poverty [is] rational and … families recognise the most sensible ways of improving their living conditions”

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1) The creation of community mapping networks for spatial histories One of the ways the Community Development Foundation utilises its loans is “to break the isolation of individual communities through collective projects,” (ACHR 2003: 6) namely the prahok fish making loans that creates “strong links between riverside communities.” (ibid) This can be capitalised on by the introduction of spatial histories mapping to the processes of the fund.

Cambodian cities, Phnom Penh in particular, have been shapeshifting. Communities that share similar spatial typologies have been witnesses to similar forms of challenges and changes. By compiling these spatial histories, in the form of maps, sketches, timelines and documented oral histories of communities that share a spatial characteristic (riverside communities and communities on the same canal as obvious examples), a deeper more accurate understanding of urban and ecological trends emerges, and with it roadmaps towards possible urban intervention scenarios.

2) Presenting Community Savings Cambodia members as urban consultants

Network

The resources needed to create well informed master plans at the khan level of the city are usually beyond the financial and human resource capabilities of local administrations. The discourse around the formulation of such plans, as our conversations with the local

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government elaborated, heavily focuses on seeking the financial and technical support of external (often international) consultancies. Our position is to refocus the attention to local knowledge and capabilities that pre-exist and are continuously being expanded through the work of the likes of CDF. Currently, the local administration deploys village chiefs as their channel of collecting data on the urban poor areas. Through this strategy we suggest the proactive role of the Community Savings Network Cambodia in conducting parts of the research the khan contacts the village chief to acquire, starting with the khans whose village chiefs were part of the exposure visits CDF organised, as those are already familiar with participatory mapping and people-driven modes of planning. (ACHR, 2003) We see this social capital as an asset that can facilitate meeting the khan’s need for human resources and data with CSNC’s mapping skills.

Outsourcing as little as some survey work to CSNC sets a precedent that increases the visibility of these communities within the city vision.

3. Integrating community-produced data in master plans Complementary to our first two propositions, this proposal seeks the recognition of community produced documents in the formulation of district master plans. One significantly important detail of people-driven processes currently underway in

Cambodia is the fact that urban poor communities are already speaking spatial planning language.

The representations of spatial realities are already in the form of architectural drawings and maps thanks to the assistance of Community Architects Network Cambodia and Community Development Foundation. This makes the information much more easily transferrable to the administrative offices a the khan and incorporated into the vision.

The government has been blatant in refusing to recognise documents produced by opposing NGOs. This obstructed the possibility of organisations such as UNHabitat to quote them. Coordinating these architectural plans makes them accessible beyond the district level into national and transnational ones.

4. Tapping into the momentum of infrastructure plans; particularly those privately funded Undoubtedly, within the context of modern day Cambodia, great emphasis is being placed on publicprivate partnerships. This cannot be dismissed as there’s a great need and potential for urban poor communities to benefit from such developments.

This proposal aims to exploit the social and financial capital invested in infrastructure projects to create better results with the same resources.

ACTIVATING SPACES OF CONVERGENCE

As often is the case, the solution to urban problems does not take place in the beneficiary space but rather in spatially discontinuous yet interrelated spaces. (de Mello Franco, 2011) The most obvious example in the Khmer context is drainage systems: in Phnom Penh, in cooperation with a programme led by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) the government facilitates very large investments to be placed around canals to solve a city-wide problem, it is also common practice for major real estate investors to connect drainage systems to their projects. The proposal focuses on reconciling the metropolitan and local scales of these intervention by allowing the locals to reprogramme the spaces of intervention according to their own values of public realm. We believe coordinating infrastructure improvements with upgrading efforts, particularly those of the new National Housing Policy (NHP) that is now moving towards implementation, is a structure through which the urban fabric can be more cohesively integrated.

Dissemination of local knowledge

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4.3 TRANSFORMING DISCOURSES It is important to address the relation between the “alternative discourses” and a city scale. That is, the role of the proposals in the wider city-scale development process should be placed at the centre of the debate. Our proposals don’t focus only on small scale, communitybound interventions and initiatives, rather they foster and suggest further amelioration of the existing citywide urban environment.

While a focus on the local is important to pro-poor political strategies, such strategies (and associated literatures) are not credible unless they recognise that there is also a need to deal with institutionalised power relations above the level of the settlement, and this requires community structures that enable local groups to work together to represent their interests within these political structures. A strong focus on political change and/or on participation in membership-based organisations links more easily to the discourses of social movement activities and interventions, rather than those based around participation.

This orientation has been challenged by the practice of many membership-based organisations who emphasise that if participation seeks community empowerment and pro-poor development policies, it necessarily involves a capacity to deal with adverse power structures and practices that lie above the immediate locale.

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This conceptual collage illustrates how we imagine our proposals and strategies to come together in a grander vision of Cambodia’s urban future. By placing different discourses that are shaping the city close next to each other in one image, the collage provokes the meaning of their juxtaposition. It is a visual allegory of real-life processes that acknowledges messy and complex nature of framing all the narratives onto the same level, within one-dimensional space.

Coming from our definition of transformation, alternative discourses are framed where new knowledge is created, dichotomies in power dynamics disrupted, and they happen in real spaces. The principles of autonomy, visibility, transparency and collaboration activate our proposals — negotiating new type of land ownership, tactful mobilization through finances and vision-making, and synchronizing different types of knowledge for the design of more just outcomes.

People driven development processes have the right and responsibility to replay, response and revise the city as the mainstream capital-led, top-down forces do. The vision is a demand for these alternative narratives to come out from the shadow of the transitional conditions of historical change. The alternative practices have power of creation of a more diverse meta-narrative that shapes the urban.

To allow these alternatives in the city is to give authority to historically and systematically disturbed and disrupted dialogues of humankind, because these voices and acts are a sign of civic life.

In conclusion, working in the settlements of Cambodia revealed that there is no such a thing as an ‘informal’ citizen, and ‘informal’ space or a settlement. All spaces occupied by citizens are a sign of citizenship that needs to be allowed to speak, and this is what we try to address with our strategy.

To build walls that silence them in the future will compel us to ultimately return to the silent killing fields of the past and the present — be it colonization, apartheid or another dictatorship — and to give voice to those who were silenced. The opportunity to endow the right to narrate is an act that can’t be done retrospectively, which is why Cambodia’s transition is the right time to seize the opportunity for transformation.

ACTIVATING SPACES OF CONVERGENCE

Conceptual Collage of Strategies

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CONCLUSION

5.1 REFLECTIONS & CONCLUSIONS Reflections on our role It is important to briefly mention the group’s’ personal reflections and impressions from the field, because we believe this can be a useful reflective guideline when considering positionality of future students and development practitioners who will embark on the similar line of research.

One of the biggest strengths of this field trip is in exposing young Khmer architects to the field of participatory design. Many of the students with whom we worked with expressed that working in the informal residents for the first time left a powerful impression on them. Our presence helped in creating a platform for communication between community leaders, NGOs and city-authorities. Visits to different informal settlements around Phnom Penh deepened our understanding of the layered complexity behind ‘poverty’ and ‘community’.It prompted us to think how, as designers, we can become better activators, curators, and mediators of social processes in a networked reality. We are now more critically aware of our role as professionals and how blurry the disciplinary boundaries between designers and development practitioners are.

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Above all, the most important, overarching reflexion from the field trip was to find that our research in Cambodia is more than just a passive subject of our study. The process of learning was twofold: our presence and positionality influenced the process of learning, but we also found ourselves subjected to the research and changed by our experience.The impressive peopledriven strategies in Cambodia (and in the neighboring Southeast Asian countries) empowered by informality is something that is not only present in some of our individual respective backgrounds, but especially London where we study. Old postindustrial democracies of the West have a great deal to learn from the social development and bottom-up strategies in Cambodia and the rest of Global South. Hence, we should find the alliance in the agency of the people-led, pro-poor discourse from the Global South with the efforts of scholar activism in the Global North in order to amplify the transformative power of socio-spatial process.

CONCLUSION

Source: Belen Desmaison

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Fallavier, P. (2003). Urban Slums Reports: The case of Phnom Penh, Cambodia in Understanding SLums: Case Studies for the Global Report on Human Settlements 2003 [online document] Available at: <http://www.ucl. ac.uk/dpu-projects/Global_Report/pdfs/PhnomPenh. pdf> [Accessed on 30/05/15]

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Mithlin, D and Satterthwaite, D (2007). Strategies for Grassroots Control of International Aid. In Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2007, pp. 483-500.

Nathalie Bugalski and David Pred (2009) Land Titling in Cambodia: Formalizing Inequality, Bridge Across Borders Cambodia, A Year in Review 2009 [online document] Available at: <http://www. babcambodia.org/articles/docs/BABC%20-%20 Land%20Titling%20in%20Cambodia.pdf>[Accessed on 31 May 2015] National Institute of Statistics (NIS), Ministry of Planning (MP) (2008). General Population Census of Cambodia 2008 [online document] Available at: <http://www.stat.go.jp/english/info/meetings/ cambodia/pdf/pre_rep1.pdf> [Accessed on 30/05/15] Pauker, Guy J. (1985). Policy Implications of Political Institutionalization and Leadership Changes in Southeast Asia, Rand Paper, Santa Monica 1985, 23 pages.[online document] Available at: <http://www. jstor.org/stable/30172010?seq=1#page_scan_tab_ contents>[Accessed on 08 February 2015] Phnom Penh Municipality (1999). Strategy to Build the Capacity of the Municipality of Phnom Penh for Urban Poverty Reduction. Phnom Penh: Phnom Penh Municipality. [onlinedocument] Available at:< http://www.unescap.org/pdd/prs/ ProjectActivities/Ongoing/HousingUrbanPolicy/ municipalcapacitystrategy.pdf>[Accessed on 08 February 2015]

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Pinnegar, Simon (2009) The Question of Scale in Housing-Led Regeneration: Tied to the Neighbourhood?

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Accessed on: June 1, 2015.

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APPENDIX

Research and the elaboration of a first understanding of ‘transition’ and ‘transformation’ within the context of Cambodia begun in February 2015 in London.

24 BUDD students were divided in three report groups of 8 students each, in which we started to explore and conceptualise our understanding of ‘transformation’ as well as formulating and planning the objectives and goals we wanted to achieve during the fieldtrip.

In addition to readings and our own personal explorations, we were given lectures and presentations by professionals with experience in Cambodia and subjects related to our research such as land.

For the first presentation, we introduced our understanding of the key two terms and formulated a preliminary plan of action. For the second presentation, we introduced our analytical framework as well as principles and guidelines and a first approach to each of the sites, which were assigned during the spring break. We were divided into 3 different site groups: 2 groups in Phnom Penh and another group in central Cambodia in Stueng Saen city, in Kampong Thom province, were we carried out preliminary research and came up with strategies for our analysis on field in a way that embraced our diverse understandings of transformation.

Once in Cambodia, we listened to additional presentations which deepened our understandings of different dynamics shaping the country. Additionally, we had the chance to visit other communities besides the ones that we would be working on, offering us a chance to experience on first hand additional realities, problems, and opportunities for upgrading.

Finally, here we introduce diaries from our experiences on the field, which expand and help to understand the observations presented in chapter 3 in the report.

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Structure: A. Pre-trip analysis: Lectures Group research Presentations B. First encounters in Cambodia: Lectures Visit to other communities C. Co-working on site: 1. Site-profiling Beoung Veng Rek Chom Reoun (Kampong Thom) Anlon Kngan (Phnom Penh) Sen Reik Reay (Phnom Penh) D. Final Presentation at Phnom Penh

Source: Belen Desmaison

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7.1.1 Pre-trip : Lectures in London

Giorgio Talocci - Introduction to Cambodia The lecture is a general introduction to the trend of transition in Cambodia from 1954 to 2014. It covered the period of time after the colonial occupation of France and before the ruling of Khmer Rouge, which was also the time new Khmer architecture was built. The nation worked on master plans, infrastructure, public spaces, and public interventions during that time. However, in 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh, evicting thousands of people, emptying the city overnight. After the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia was ruled under the influence of Vietnam. Nowadays, Cambodia is witnessing a new form of transformation, with a clear partnership between the government and national and international corporations for the development of large-scale commercial and residential complexes. These collaboration has led to an increase in pressure of land around Phnom Penh, which is reflected in two case studies discussed in the presentation Giorgio also talked about the issue of land. Two cases of forced relocations, Borei Keila and Dey Krahorm, portray how the urban poor live without secure land tenure, stable houses, cleaning water, electricty and other basic services.

Source: www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1443681

Philippa McMahon – Cambodia’s urban poor During the presentation, the lecturer gave us a general introduction to Cambodia’s urban poor, including some historical background, key development policies, strategies and methodologies for national development. She provided six case studies, with specific data pointing out the physical conditions among the urban poor in quantity, gender, education, land size, dwelling structure, toilet, electricity, water job and income. She concluded that the understanding of how these urban poor live was limited, and resettling them outside of the city cannot solve the problems as most of them were migrants moving to the city to find work, which caused mutual dependency between them and the city. In the absence of a governmental commitment in granting private property rights to the urban poor, she concluded by questioning if the access to urban labour market , which necessarily requires being relatively close to their jobs, should be prioritised in order to increase poverty alleviation efforts.

Source: Saki Maruyama

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7.1.1 Pre-trip : Lectures in London

Hallam Goad - Cambodia: Informal settlements Mapping, Infrastructure and Community Activism Mr. Goad gave a brief introduction of how to use participatory approaches to help informal settlements in obtaining land security and recognition. He used the case study of Sahmakum Teang Tnaut as an example to show the process. In this case, Photovoice, Funday, Mapping and Survey were activities used to achieve community cohesion and producing information to be recognised by authorities. Photovoice helped community to identify infrastructure (public toilet, path upgrading and river defense). The Funday helped the community to strengthen their own social network and organize other activities, such as cleaning up waste. Mapping and surveying were used to produce documents to get recognition for acquiring land titles. Although these documents were recognised by the local authorities, they were disregarded by the MLMUPC. As a conclusion, Mr. Goad said that, in order to achieve a just process in obtaining housing rights, policies needed to include four principles: Strategic, Informed, Non violent and Community-led.

Source: Hallam Goad

Laurie Parsons - The Cambodian Labour Migration System This lecture discussed the traditional norms and social changes in Cambodian labour migration system. The lecturer took garment workers as an example, analyzing their working and living conditions and the reasons behind their poverty and inability to save money. Cambodia is one of the ten most disaster prone countries in the world, situation that has been exacerbated in the last twenty years, likely due to climate change. The climate shocks have resulted in an increased labour migration due to the inability to grow crops. These changes, Parsons argue, are the reason behind the increase in migration. Workers working in the city are unable to save money because they send money back to their families in rural areas, which are, in many cases, in debt. Gathering information on the issue is extremely difficult and must be done using informal networks.

Cambodian migrant workers wait at the border in Poipet to be transported back to their home province on the weekend.

Source: www.phnompenhpost.com/national/one-stop-office-help-migrants-border

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7.1.1 Pre-trip : Lectures in London

Catalina Ortiz - Fieldwork techniques Catalina gave us four important tips we need to keep in mind during our stay in Cambodia so as to avoid being lost on the field. Firstly, she reminded us the design perspective. It departs from uncovering insights from the context to inspire, questioning to re-frame constraints to enable, and connecting problems to value with ideas for innovation. Secondly, the fieldwork is an embodied experience, cultivated from the existing positionally and reflexivity. Also, the fieldwork is an opportunity for knowledge co-production through our question-driven endeavour with heterogeneic actors. Lastly, she discussed data gathering on the field. We gather data through individual critical observation, encounters from fellow students or community, which is partly inter subjective, and spatial based collective data via engagement with community. We somehow balance between group members to be observant about particular instances in a given context.

Source: Belen Desmaison

Laura Antona - Battambang Presentation In the lecture, Laura Antona walked us through her experiences in 2014, working with the communitiy in Battambong. The big lesson that she learned from the field trip is that, no matter how well thought and how much you plan, once you arrive at the site, things are going to be different from what was planned, and we must learn to improvise. The plans of action that we develop before the fieldtrip should be flexible enough to allow improvisation. She also discussed the difficulties of communicating and language barriers which we might face in the field, therefore we should prepare tools and plans to help us gather as much information as possible without depending so much on language. While working in Cambodia, the team will face the expectations from many directions including individual, team, government, community, academic, etc. It is important to be conscious of the reasons that brought us to Cambodia in the first place, so we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t drift around from one expectation to another.

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Source: Group Report, BUDD students 2013-2014

7.1.1 Pre-trip : Lectures in London

Colin Marx - Land dynamics Based on years of expertise on land dynamics, Mr Marx elaborated in his presentation strategies aiming to secure urban poor communities’ right to settle in the city and access urban land. Starting with short term activism strategy, where the poor gain power through collective action to medium term advocacy strategy where pressure is created on the local government by attracting international attention, and ultimately long term strategy of changing the discourse by challenging the way people talk about land markets. Seeking ‘affordable’ land for urban poor buys into the dynamics of the capitalist land market and hence reinforces its viscous operations. Mr Marx highlighted the importance of recognising the way land markets evolve from land as necessity for survival to simple commodity to an asset for wealth generation to a complex commodity. The reality is that all these different progressions co-exist within the city; the ultimate way of legitimising land for the urban poor is to validate those different forms of markets. As land dynamics are strongly infiltrated with power relations, it’s important to be conscious of the discourses that grant more power to the already powerful.

Source: Saki Maruyama

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7.1.2 Pre-trip : Group Research

Discussion We started from defining transformation and transition through understanding history, politics, economy, and land in Cambodia, concluding our definition of those two terms. This crystallised our principles as mutual knowledge and autonomy.

Based on these interpretations, we developed key questions and plan of actions for our site exploration by framing our analysis in those four lenses.

Reading Our readings are mainly focusing on topics of housing, land, politics and finance. From the readings, we gained the basic knowledge of how the government has dealt with land issues, and how communities get access to financial resources. These findings raised questions on relocation, legal framework, relating institutions, and the relationship between all of these.

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7.1.3 Pre-trip : Presentation We first defined transformation and transition based on our understanding of the particularities of Cambodia. Then, we built strategies based on two principles: mutual knowledge and autonomy. These strategies were seen through different lenses; Land, Finance and Scale.

Transition

Based on our research, we set key questions on each sites.

We understood transition as the change from one condition to another through four lenses; political, economic, social, and physical over the past 60 years of the country. Also, we saw it as the opportunity to trigger transformative forces being showed in current changes in Cambodia where there is a clear opening for alternative discourses.

Boeung Veng How can the community self-organise to develop strategies to address pressing issues like garbage accumulation and lack of proper sanitation systems? Can these strategies be replicated in other areas?

How can strategies and technologies learned in other case studies be incorporated in this community?

Transformation In the beginning, we started defining ‘truth’ as socially constructed by social, political, and economical accepted discourses, and thus, we defined transformation as a process of re-conceptualising and re-defining ‘truth’ through cultivating a plurality of discourses that allowed the inclusion and legitimisation.

Principles Mutual Knowledge- creating knowledge Collaboration: conflictual participation’ with ‘friendly enemies’ at the intersection of continuously negotiated common goals.

Transparency: democratisation of knowledge where information is openly shared and disseminated.

Boueng Chouk Meanchey Can we re-calibrate the normative relationship between internal and external capacities to increase the possibility for autonomy and open new avenues for collaboration?

How can we create new or strengthen existing discourses to serve as vehicles to help address the present condition of the site?

Anlong Kngan How can the residents upgrade their settlement by using the common situation of having insecure tenure and by calling for their land rights and housing policies on the municipal land?

Autonomy- putting knowledge into action Visibility: of alternative discourses for recognition, inclusion & replicability Appropriation: of the process & products of selfdevelopment Key questions 139

7.2.1 In-field : Lectures in Cambodia CAN â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Cam CAN-Cam is the Community Architect Network in Cambodia. The group is made up of architecture students and young professionals that volunteer in contributing to urban development with communities. During the lecture, the representatives introduced several workshops and projects they were involved in recent years, as well as what they did in detail, such as doing survey with community saving networks, and helping different communities with the design of their houses as well as the shared urban space. They also worked hard to enhance communication between communities, and succeeded teaching communities to participate in estimating costs and designing their own houses. As a conclusion, they talked about their personal experiences and the things they had learned by participating in these processes. They thought community is a key actor on the process of building their own houses, and they should always collaborate closely with all levels of local authorities, other communities and professionals, learning from each other to better understand the meaning of city-wide upgrading as necessarily being a co-produced endeavor.

CSNC CSNC is the Community Savings Network in Cambodia. Their work focuses on the urban poor, whose poverty is understood beyond the economic sphere to include legal status, connections to the rest of the city, knowledge and power. In the lecture, they pointed out that people are the greatest resource in a community, since they have the ability to look for funds, building a city-wide network, pressing for policy changes and creating partnerships with different actors. The lecturers introduced the key elements of their work, which are collaborating with saving groups and funding, city-wide surveys, working collectively, building a city network, participatory planning and physical upgrading, and building a city committee and partnerships. Each step and development element has a the possibility of changing power relationships, by creating platforms that trigger and balance horizontal power relationships to balance with vertical power. Furthermore, the saving network they have been building is at various levels, from regional level to city level.

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Source: Fiona Zeng

Source: Fiona Zeng

7.2.1 In-field : Lectures in Cambodia Mr. Kem Ley - Historical Development: Economic, social and cultural, political in Cambodia that effects on the urban transformation and development Mr. Kem Ley gave a brief summary of the current situation in Cambodia, a country which is experiencing economic growth as well as the improvement in poverty rate and vulnerability by having less people considered to be in extreme poverty and suffering vulnerability, according to ASEAN Statistic 2011. He said that Cambodia is currently in a ‘Turning Point’ in which the importance of good governance with greater dialogue between authorities, civil society and civilians is not only invited but openly encouraged by fomenting institutionalised partnerships which have, at their core, accountability and responsibility.

Source: update/

policyforchange.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/clear-skies-cambodia-economic-

Mann Chhoeurn - History, mission, activities Community Development Foundation (CDF) in Cambodia, how relate to ACCA program and Community Architect Network The lecture helped students to better understand the meaning and working contents of the General Department of Housing, Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, ACHR, and CDF. It showed the training on affordable housing development carried out in both Cambodia and Thailand, and the scene of ACCA-ACHR regional meeting.

Cambodia Community Architects Network with Cambodia’s most famous Architect and Urban Planner, Van Molly Van at RUFA, Phnom Penh, May 2014 Source: www.achr.net/countries-de.php?ic=14

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7.2.1 In-field : Lectures in Cambodia

Mr.Tee & Mr.Nut - ACHR + CAN in South East Asia Mr.Nut and Mr.Tee helped us to build a clearer understanding of the approaches and mindset for working in the field. One of the most thought-provoking suggestions was to step back from rigid mechanical ways of working and become more â&#x20AC;&#x153;organicâ&#x20AC;?, in the sense of working with HEAD, HAND and HEART. We should be working together with communities in ways to weave ourselves together, by building a better understanding between each other and also within ourselves. They also reminded us that DPU students are outsiders coming for only few days, so it is ok if we could not find the ultimate solution for them, but what we can do that might be useful is to tell them what we see and what we understand about the community and how they can start improving their lives with knowledge and activities that are already happening on ground that they are perhaps taking for granted but are valuable and useful. We should be using tools and participatory process to help them rethink about their lifestyle and their future, using the process to unlock peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s potential. Solutions do not always need to be complicated, in fact, solutions to many things are already present within the community members and local wisdom that they have.

Source: Belen Desmaison

UN Habitat On account of the poor conditions in the countryside and the better conditions in cities, there are large quantities of migration from rural to urban in Cambodia. In order to better deal with the issue, government has published policies that seek to improve the lives of the urban poor. Circular 03 is an example of these efforts, targeting the issues of informality, relocation, and on-site upgrading. UN-Habitat started their work in Cambodia in 1996. Since then, they have been continuously working with government, addressing urban and land issues especially, and encouraging partnerships between different actors in order to activate the dialogue about these issues on a wider scale. Currently, UN-Habitat is working together with the government in the development of the National Housing Policy.

Source: www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/projects/cambodia

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7.2.1 In-field : Lectures in Cambodia

UPDF-CDF with ACCA The lecture has explained how UPDF works in Cambodia, and UPDFâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s development strategies during 1998-2011. UPDF depends on a number of donors to operate regularly, such as international aid, the government, and ACHR. The funds are distributed as loans to CDF in provincial level according to communitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; needs. CDF then supports people with livelihoods and infrastructure by means of community saving groups.

The development strategies of UPDF include: Community organizing Community saving Community loans Community welfare Community infrastructure upgrading, land, housing and security Land sharing Community human resources development Partnerships and network The reason why UPDF collaborates with CDF is that CDF helps with changing the construction management process to a more flexible financial system, where people could gain a space to participate. And the core objective of CDF is to find a holistic approach for upgrading, through the reform of urban land to reach the city-wide scale.

Source: www.achr.net/countries-de.php?ic=14

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7.2.2 In-field : Visit to other communities

Chung Ruk The community is located 12km from the urban area after a fire destroyed the homes of over 600 families who used to live in Bandos Vichea. The families received donated building materials to start building their new houses on the undeveloped land. The communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s toilets were constructed in stages, while the site greatly suffered from flooding, especially in the rainy season. During that time, waste matters mixed with water, causing serious health problems to people. Currently, a privately run water supply system is in place. A vocational training centre has been built but is not operating. Additionally, the community has difficulties organizing an effective committee.

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Source: Ana PuhaÄ?

7.2.2 In-field : Visit to other communities

Andong community In 2006, 8000 people were evicted from Tonle Basaac settlement in central Phnom Penh. All of the people were relocated to Andong village without any compensation.

People living in this area have serious problems of low income and unemployment, additionally suffering from flooding, mucky walkways, poor infrastructure and crude shelters. Over the past year, the municipality has provided some public toilets and space for a fresh market and community centres. In addition, UPDF has granted housing loans to community saving groups which will help people to start housing and livelihood development. In 2012, PCL (What is PCL?) launched a project called ‘Build a city’ to help create a new community, with green space, kindergartens, and several soccer fields provided. 300 families are moving into the new settlements soon, and they would get a house certificate without a land title in 5 years.

Source: Ana Puhač

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7.2.2 In-field : Visit to other communities

Stung Kambot Community, Phnom Penh This community is located near the Kop Sreou dyke, which is 9km away from the urban area, near National Highway 5.

Currently, 60 families live along Road 271, with a planned capacity for 147 families. Residents currently have water supply and electricity which have been provided by private suppliers. Additionally, UNCHS is building temporary community pit latrines on the site. Due to the distance and isolation to the city centre, the community decided to form their own savings groups to buy land closer to Kork Kleand.

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Source: Belen Desmaison

7.2.2 In-field : Visit to other communities

Russiey Keo In 2009, a big fire roared through the Russiey Keo District.

452 houses from five communities were destroyed, leaving more than 2000 people homeless. At that time, these communities already had mature, strong womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s saving groups and certificates of occupancy issued by the District in 1992. Because of good collaboration between the communities and the local authorities, people were supported by the government to rebuild their houses instead of being evicted. A small project grant from ACCA is being used to rebuild 600 metres of roads and drainage lines. House plots are equal and lanes are straightened and widened at the same time. Now a $40,000 fund from ACCA will be added to another $97,000 from UPDF for housing loans for the reconstruction of 157 houses from the five communities. The new houses will be built collectively, using concrete blocks rather than wood. Currently, people are in the process of learning construction techniques so that they can build their houses themselves.

Source: Belen Desmaison

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7.2.2 In-field : Visit to other communities

Borei Keila The community was once the example of Phnom Penhâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pioneering land-sharing project, in which 1776 families would be re-housed in 10 apartment blocks built on part of the same site. The community had reached an agreement with the Municipality that every family would get a 4x12m apartment completely free. However, by the time the 8th apartment block was finished and occupied, the developer broke the agreement on account of the sharp rise of land values. The remaining 340 families were relocated to an undeveloped piece of land 45 kilometres outside the city, given few roofing sheets and bamboo poles only. Now the people from these families are still not giving up struggling for their rights living near the site in inhumane conditions surrounded by waste.

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Source: Ana PuhaÄ?

7.2.2 In-field : Visit to other communities

Rousrey Rousrey is a very old community. People started to settle on this land around 1979, which is the time after the fall of Khmer Rouge.

Because of their strength and solidarity, this community was chosen by UPDF as one of the first 3 communities to be upgraded on site. This community has a very positive relationship with the municipality which is quite unique. Their strength and their good relationship with the government sector, the community was able to create an agreement with the municipality to proceed with on-site upgrading. After discussing about existing issues and their priority to upgrade, the community received a first installment of 500$ from the municipality. They used this money and the money from their savings group to upgrade underground drainage and community sanitation.

The community carried on more upgrading projects in many other aspect such as house upgrading, re-blocking and road pavement.

Community members play an important part by carrying out surveys and planning to achieve solutions. This community become the role model of on-site upgrading projects. It is a proof that community driven upgrading is really possible.

Source: Ana PuhaÄ?

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7.2.2 In-field : Visit to other communities

Ek Rangsey Ek Rangsey is an upgraded community across the river from the Royal Palace. 182 families have stayed here since 1979, working as fishermen and vegetable sellers.

The community has taken a $2800 upgrading grant to build a tiled walkway and drainage line throughout the entire settlement, which took only a month to finish with everyone involved in. Furthermore, in order to widen and strengthen the walkway, 19 families moved their houses back and took a loan to contribute. Now they are living with the new walkway with trees planted along it.

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Source: Belen Desmaison

7.2.2 In-field : Visit to other communities

Koulaloum Koulaloum 1 & 2 communities are Muslim settlements consisting of 447 households alongside the Mekong river. These communities have also been very active in community savings. Their upgrading plans have begun with a 350m walkway. They first laid it in gravel and later upgraded to concrete and coloured tiles, using a very modest upgrading grant of only $5,000. Only 33 families have so far taken housing loans, total $15,200, however, their attachment toward the land seems quite strong.

Source: Belen Desmaison

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7.2.3 In-field: On-site Boeung Veng Reik Chamroeun

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Location Stueng Saen City, Kampong Thom Province Population 124 people Households 32 Savings Group 19 households from community currently saving.

Basic Infrastructure Electricity available, no sewage, limited water supply

WHAT WE DID

Source: Kampong Thom Site Group

DAY 1 - Identifying the needs and priorities While still in Phnom Penh, we were introduced to community leaders and a representative of CDF. CANCam explained the mapping exercise they had already carried out and the leaders explained what were their main priorities: obtaining land titles, cleaning the canal, and getting more people to participate in the savings group.

We noticed that their needs were not prioritised and that they had not carried out surveys to inform themselves about what each community member wanted to achieve by joining the savings group.

DAY 2- Identifying the political agenda Before visiting the community, we met the vice-mayor of Stueng Saen. He explained the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 5-year plan for competing in the Clean City programme as well as offering to help us by providing any kind of information that we sought necessary. However, when we actually requested information, he told us that that information was not available, while insisting that he was willing to help us with any kind of information. We also noticed how the 5-years planned lacked an overall vision of the city, exemplified by the in-existence of a masterplan, and how the well-being of the poor was considered as part of their goals. They offered as the only option relocating the community 70 kms away from the city, arguing that there was no available land nearby.

DAY 3- Critical Observation

Source: Belen Desmaison

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7.2.3 In-field :

On-site Boeung Veng Reik Chamroeun

INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMUNITY: we met community members in an open area near the canal. Here, it became increasingly difficult to identify who was part of the community and who was not and who was the leader.

Additionally, we walked through the site which allowed us to recognise alternative income generation activities already taking place as well as the physical status of the houses on the canal and the level of water pollution.

VISITING THE RELOCATION SITE: the CDF leader had already identified available land located relatively close to the city centre which could be bought by the community.

We also met the landowner who informed us about the price of the land.

COMMUNITY MENTAL MAPPING: we drew a mental map with the help of the community in order to understand their daily activities and their relationships with the city.

It became evident that both community and city were dependent on each other since most of the community members worked at the local market located nearby.

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INTERACTIVE COMMUNITY SURVEY: we visited each of the houses along the canal to have a better understanding of the living conditions of each community member, an accurate analysis of the number of people living in each household, their daily activities and their relationship with the savings group. With this we were able to expand the information we were initially given as well as the boundaries of the community, which were originally understood only as those who were involved in the savings group.

VISITING THE KHAN OFFICE:: some of us went to the commune office to try to obtain information about the land and about the population living in that Khan.

However, we were not able to obtain any information, given that the commune did not have maps.

Day 4- Co-production of knowledge DREAM HOUSE: we worked with each community member in the production of their dream house based on a

model that we brought with us. In this exercise we learned that people had a realistic vision of their houses and that they all dreamt about having their own toilet. Additionally, the exercise was useful in understanding traditional khmer housing typologies.

DREAM COMMUNITY: after analysing the individual scale, we organised two parallel activities: one designing a dream community at the current site and one at the possible relocation site. Here we learned innovative ways which people already had envisioned to improve communal living.

land was public and which one was private.

Day 5- Materialising knowledge into strategies PRE-PRESENTATION TO THE COMMUNITY: we prepared a presentation among BUDD students and our fellow Cambodian students to present our findings and

VISITING THE CADASTRAL OFFICE: In spite the fact that we visited the office with a member of the MLMUPC, we were denied access to information or, if we wanted it, we would have to pay $10 to obtain the name of each landowner, even though we just wanted to know which

Source: Belen Desmaison Cristiรกn Robertson

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7.2.3 In-field :

On-site Boeung Veng Reik Chamroeun

strategies to the community. We worked on creating a dynamic, simple language that could easily be translated and understood by the community.

PRESENTATION TO THE COMMUNITY: we then presented our findings to the community, waiting to hear comments and explaining to them that they would then have the opportunity to explain this to the municipality.

Day 6- Re-materialising knowledge/ Visibility and Autonomy COMMUNITY PREPARATION:: In the morning we worked with the community to prepare a presentation

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Source: Belen Desmaison

for the municipality, in which the discourse was slightly changed in order to emphasise certain aspects like the ways in which community efforts n cleaning the canal were aligned with the municipalityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s desire to win the Clean City award. Additionally, we introduced new lenses to our analysis like the necessity to include a survey on the true costs of relocating communities to places far away from the city centre.

PRESENTATION TO THE MUNICIPALITY: community members themselves explained the key findings as well as their vision to the city to members of the municipality who, at the end, promised to help in the process to find alternative land. We were asked to prepare a document

Source: Belen Desmaison CristiĂĄn Robertson

so that the municipality could present our findings to provincial authorities. The most rewarding aspect of this presentation was seeing community members taking control of the process.

when we first started our activities and the same people dancing with us until late hours of the night.

COMMUNITY PARTY: during the night we had a party with the community in which we danced and ate with them We see this as part of the process of creating autonomy, empowerment and visibility within the community. We saw a rapid change between shy community members

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7.2.3 In-field :

On-site Beoung Ven Reik Chamreun Outcomes

LANDMARKS WALKING DISTANCE FROM CURRENT SITE HOUSES WITH LAND TITLE HOUSEHOLDS IN SAVING GROUP HOUSEHOLDS WITH NO LAND TITLE

29

MEMBERS 60% of community members have 4-7 people per family

SURVEY 158

JOBS

SAVINGS

Most community More than half of members work at the community the market or as members are moto-taxi drivers already in the savings group

GARBAGE

TOILETS

No garbage collection/ management in place

No toilets in the houses

HOUSEHOLDS MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY

BOEUNG VENG REIK CHOM REOUN COMMUNITY

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

PROPOSED HOUSING UPGRADE -INCREMENTAL PROCESS-

Current living conditions

HOUSE/SHOP/BUILDING

PLANTS. CROPS. TREES.

STREET/PUBLIC SPACE

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

TOILET/WATER SUPPLY

1. Flooding a. Houses are higher than ground level b. Flooding inside the house

c. Different levels inside the houses for flood prevention 2. Houses Materials a. Metal b. Wood c. Bamboo (cheap) 3. Kitchen and toilets are separated from the rest of the house 4. Free frontal space for resting, parking, shops.

5. Entrances to the house are not aligned to each other (Khmer tradition) 6. Sleeping position oriented towards East and North (Khmer tradition)

Dream-House Activity 1. Bigger house size 2. Houses should include: a. Toilet b. Kitchen 3. Sleeping space for each family member 4. Partition of sleeping space (curtain or wall) 5. House with front space for shops, parking or social encounters.

6. Space for children a. Learning b. Playing

OPTION 1

OPTION 2

OPTION 3

GROUND VS CANAL

PUBLIC SPACES/ PLAYGROUND

Communities prefer Playground for having their houses children after every 4 on the ground houses rather than on canal A central community space for community meetings and social events

TOILETS

TREES/ PLANTS

GARBAGE

All the families need and want a toilet

Inhabitants want trees in front of their house and small plants behind their houses

Small garbage collection in front of each house

TOILETS

GREEN SPACE

GARBAGE

Individual toilet for each household, placed outside

Trees in front and behind the houses

Once rubbish bin for every two houses.

Community accepted possibility of shared toilets at the beginning of the process

Fences separating each house made out of plants

Placed in front of the house so that community can control each other about proper disposal

They all want individual toilets

Several bridges for easy access

INCREMENTAL HOUSING

OPTION 4

01. COMMUNITY SAVING

02. CLEAN THE CANAL

- Access to loans - Creates solidarity between community members - Creates partnerships between members and other communities that are also saving

- Improved living conditions: sanitation and health - Improved and more pleasant public space

OPTION 5

OPTION 6

03. TOILETS - Implementing shared toilets at the beginning, upgrade to individual toilets gradually - Invest in better drainage system and organise proper waste management.

OPTION 1: ON-SITE UPGRADING HOUSE/SHOP/BUILDING

PLANTS. CROPS. TREES.

STREET/PUBLIC SPACE

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

HOUSE Communities want their entrance facing the road and other communities.

Toilet and kitchen located at the back of the house Solid Waste Management

Water Management

Water Front Development

ON-SITE UPGRADING STRATEGIES

Clean City

TOILET/WATER SUPPLY

COMMUNITY SPACES Football field, community centre and playground at the centre

Co-operation with other urban development partners

OPTION 2: RELOCATION TO AREA NEARBY 159

7.2.4 In-field : Beoung Choeuk Meanchey Thmey II Day 1 In the morning, we visited the original Boeung Choeuk Meanchey Thmey II, and Smor San and Smor San I. The living conditions of these three communities are quite different. For instance, in Smor San, people are doing manufactures with the support of CDF to help them build infrastructure and operate the savings group.

They have been cooperating very well in recent years.

However, in Beoung Chuk, people do not have a land title nor certificates. Children use a playground a cemetery full of coffins. Additionally, the area is prone to floding, which causes damages to the houses. During the visit, they expressed great expectations on us, hoping to find opportunities or solutions to these issues.

After lunch, we headed to our site, Boeung Choeuk Meanchey Thmey II, where we were warmly welcomed by the community leader and members. All of us together with the community were sitting in a circle at the yard located in another community, introducing each other and sharing basic information about the living and saving conditions of the community. Since the community is quite small, with only 34 families, we divided ourselves into four groups to talk with them in detail. People were willing to share what they knew about the community, and even invited us to visit their houses.

Day 2

160

Location Phnom Penh city Population --Households 31 Savings Group 14 families Basic Infrastructure Water (UNICEF), Electricity, limited sewage accessibility, poor condition of pathways.

In the morning, we divided ourselves into four groups to do the housing survey and interview respectively. People who did the inside housing survey sketched the plan of each house, and wrote the basic information about the house owner, including age, gender, income, etc. People who did the housing typology updated the map that CDF made and figured out exactly what were the conditions of each house. Carrying out the survey was easy, with the help from Khmer students to translate.

In the afternoon, we went to the Municipality of the Commune, known in Khmer as Khan, where people introduced the land issues, the master plan, the housing policy, and Circular 03 in Phnom Penh to us. The representative from community also presented the needs from the community.

Day 3 We spent the morning finishing the survey. Then we Source: Tasneem Nagi

161

were divided into three groups to work on different stuff.

One group was working on the community book, which included all the information and the plan of each house we got from the survey. Another group worked on the timeline, graphically showing how things have changed after the real-estate had stepped in, and making proposals on the environmental issues. The final group worked on the master plan.

We had lunch in the community. After that, we continued working on the activities we were working on during the morning. After, we returned to the hotel and discussed how we could organise the things we would do the next day. We were all excited about the ways in which people participated during the activities of this day.

Day 4 It was the community participation day.

162

Source: Tasneem Nagi

In the morning, almost all of the community members were waiting in the yard. We showed the community book to them at first. And then we split them into groups, letting them recognize their houses on the map and explaining the master plan we had proposed to them.

When they heard that we planned to divide every house into equal area, they showed their disagreement fiercely.

And the environmental proposals were also rejected by people. They agreed more to fill the land instead. This tells of the necessity to have greater discussions about the environmental consequences of landfills, not only for this community but for the city as a whole.

We had a meeting during the lunch time according to their comments. Then we corrected parts of our master plan and proposed another option. In order to show our proposals in a more straightforward manner, we made several models and did a lot of drawings. We had another discussion in the afternoon with the community, explaining the two options respectively. And the community members voted for the one they preferred, giving comments and more options on it. During the discussion, we spent happy time with them, by playing games and doing some exercise to relax.

We learned a lot from the participatory process. The community members tried their best to cooperate with us, which made us familiar with each other in a very short time. At the end of the day, we played games together with the old community lady and the children. They were waiting for our presentation on next Monday.

Source: Tasneem Nagi

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7.2.4 In-field : Beoung Choeuk Meanchey Thmey II

164

165

7.2.5 In-field : Anlong Kngan

Day 1 Based on the brief introduction by the community leader, we decided to research from four points: Housings (typologies), Land issues (land titles and relocations), Savings and Social aspects.

166

Location Phnom Penh city Population -Households 486 Savings Group -Basic Infrastructure Water, sewage, electricity available

First, we divided into two groups and visited Anlong Kngan settlement, Sen Punleu 1, Sen Punleu 2, and Sen Rikreay.

With the help of Khmer students, we tried gathering information about the community. The people there are mostly working for constructions or garment factories around the area. Despite the fact that people do not have a land title, the community has water pipeline and electricity provided by the government since 2011. Additionally, we found there are diverse housing typologies inside the community; even without land titles, some households have been upgraded.

After lunch, we visited Sen Sok 1 community. Here, we finally figured out the reason why some got land title and others did not after the fire. People who had land title before the fire got a land title with plot in the area, however, since the others did not have it, they still live informally without land title.

The communities of Sen Sabay and Trapang Rang Chas still have limited access to water. People need to buy water jars from private companies. Other than this, the situation seems similar to that the main community we work with.

Day 2

Source: Ana PuhaÄ?

We first visited Samroang Mean Chey Community. Behind the community are village 3 and village 4, where land plot and land title were properly distributed after the fire.

There, we splited into groups, and visited households and carried out interviews to understand the housing typologies and lifestyles of members of the community.

Amongst the households who obtained land plots, half of them sold the land title and moved to another area because they did not get business opportunities. Those who settled in the plot started living in the area with tent right after the fire without any proper infrastructure. Since then, they were able to implement by themselves basic services, turning the settlement into an autonomous small city.

Before going back to our hotel, we stopped by Grand Phnom Penh, a large-scale residential development occurring nearby, designed by private company to attract

Cambodian/ foreign upper class residents. It was quite interesting to see the contrast between the city the private sector, with the support of the government, is planning and the reality of the communities that are not considered as part of the process of development at the city scale.

Source: Ana PuhaÄ?

Day 3 In the morning we were introduced to the municipality of Sen Sok district. They explained that their masterplan was still in progress so we could not take a look as it.

167

7.2.5 In-field : Anlong Kngan

Additionally, the local authorities were willing to share ideas and information to upgrade the community.

After the discussion with the municipality, we visited the entire Anlong Kngan area, village 3, village 4, village 5, village 7 and Sen RikReay .

Community to observe and analyse the relationship between the households inside the community and those in the periphery of the lot. From this research, we identified subtle tensions between inside and outside, since the people outside did not want to talk about the community.

Besides, the porosity of the community is only one-way, leaving the possibility of improving peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flow.

Day 4 On the last day in the morning, we designed two workshops for the community. The first one aimed for identifying the ideal housing plot size for the people in the community.

The second activity aimed to co-produce a designed for the shared public space -the streets- in ways that emphasized 168

Source: Ana PuhaÄ?

social interaction and attracted peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flow into the interior of the site.

During the workshop, at the beginning, it was quite difficult to communicate with the people, however, we tried combining ice-breaking activities and aimed for a flexible flow of the workshop, and we managed to interact with the members. From the first activity, we found out the desirable plot size is actually much smaller than they expressed at the beginning. Experiencing the size with others had changed their perception, which made them realize they demanded too much. From the other one, we found out the people in the community have difficulty in grasping the concept of spatiality of shared public spaces. This was what we did not expect. Therefore, we changed the tactics to ask them about their housing, immediate surroundings, and the area itself, figuring out the issues and solutions for that. It was interesting because they mentioned some issues, which we never thought about, such as the animalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s excreta around the community.

Source: Ana PuhaÄ?

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7.2.5 In-field : Anlong Kngan Outcome

170

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7.2.6 In-field : Final Presentations at Phnom Penh

We closed our field research with the presentation of all the materials we produced. Each site presented proposals to achieve the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s transformation. Site 1, from Kampong Thom, proposed the idea of linking institutional goals with already-existing community activities, Site 2, Boeung Choeuk Meanchey Thmey II, aimed to trigger self-awareness, and site 3, Anlon Kngan, suggested strategies to activate self-sufficient attitudes. After the presentation, the governors and representatives from other institutions, including UN-Habitat, gave us feedbacks to open discussions about the future plan of Cambodia.

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