A new report on Promoting Affordable Housing in Yangon, Myanmar published by the Asian Development Bank has, among other recommendations, urged the government of Myanmar to consider establishing a National Climate Land Bank to proactively address the looming climate displacement crisis in the country. The report notes that “Myanmar’s housing sector is struggling to cope with rapid urbanization, internal migration, and new demand from recent economic growth. These challenges are most apparent in the Yangon Region, where estimates suggest there will be a housing shortage of 1.3 million units by 2030. This publication assesses the current housing market situation in Yangon. It identifies reform options and offers practical recommendations to support the Yangon Region Government’s implementation of its affordable housing agenda and related policies.” With a specific recommendation to establish a climate land bank, the report continues “The central importance of land for security, stability, and economic development is already well-recognized by the present government and by all organs of civil society, which have commenced identifying state land resources for eventual distribution to landless rural poor households as part of broader land reform efforts. In this context, the establishment of the MNCLB would be a further element of broader land reform measures, which are already underway in the country. Without such an MNCLB in place, the growing numbers of people facing displacement due to the effects of climate change will increasingly have nowhere to go and thus be forced, as climate displaced communities everywhere, into urban slums or new residential options that are wholly inadequate to meet their basic human rights requirements.” Needless to say, Displacement Solutions fully supports this recommendation and also encourages the government of Myanmar, and ALL other governments as well, to immediately establish climate land banks as a workable tool in addressing the growing crisis of climate displacement everywhere.
A full copy of the report is available here: financing-affordable-housing-yangon.