In October 2014, for the first time in recent history, the government of Myanmar decided to organize a public consultation to inform the development of a national policy. To support this consultation process, several organizations decided to organize civil society pre-consultation activities to listen and gather concerns from smallholder farmers to formulate relevant recommendations for the policy dialogue.

This capitalization note aims to share the experience of that remarkable mobilization by civil society and the impacts of this pre-consultation on the final National Land Use Policy. The study presents the institutions involved in the pre-consultation coordinated by the Land Core Group. It reviews the impact of the process as contributing to the national consultation and reflects on the successes and challenges of the implementation.

Drawing lessons from retrospective and critical analysis of the action is particularly important at this time because it is expected that similar (pre)consultation processes will follow in connection to other policies and laws