by lwang | Jun 15, 2012 | Landesa, Roy Prosterman, Sustainable Development
Kravis Prize winners all strive towards raising awareness of issues that people may or may not encounter in everyday life. For example, the New York Times published an op-ed this week by Roy Prosterman, 2006 Kravis Prize winner and founder of rural developer Landesa, and land-rights specialist and Landesa senior attorney Darryl Vhugen, who discuss the importance of land rights in Myanmar. Here in the U.S. it’s easy to take these basic rights for granted, since we have a rule of law and certain institutions in place. Prosterman and Vhugen, however, point out how these seemingly deserved rights are very much lacking in some countries, such as Myanmar: “Nearly 70 percent of Myanmar’s 47 million people live in rural areas. About one-third of these are landless agricultural laborers. Most of the others, fortunate enough to have some rights to the patch of ground they farm, control their fields only tenuously. There are two main reasons for this. First, with increasing frequency, land is taken from farmers, often with little or no compensation. Large swathes of farmland have already been made available to foreign-based companies in a process that appears to be accelerating. … Second, Myanmar law requires farmers to grow what the government or the local military commander wants them to grow, and subjects farmers to production quotas. Policies like these also displace farmers and lead to food insecurity, as farm productivity suffers. This can push farmers into debt by forcing them to take out loans from money lenders or sell their land in an effort to meet an unrealistic planting directive.” The authors add that despite the growing...
by lwang | Jun 8, 2012 | Landesa, Roy Prosterman
Inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman founded Landesa to put to work his expertise on land reform, rural development and foreign aid and to enact change in the world including China, where more than 4 million rural Chinese lose their land due to government takings every year. Not only do these land grievances violate property rights, they also accounted for two-thirds of the 187,000 reported mass protests and riots in China in 2010! With such a large rate of incidence and a link to rebellion, it is no wonder that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the country needs to adopt land reforms. Landesa also recently conducted a field study that examined farmers’ land rights in more than 1,700 villages in 17 provinces in China, which revealed some implications of the current state of land laws. On March 6, 2012, Prosterman and Landesa attorney Zhu Keliang presented the findings of the study at a talk hosted by the National Committee on the U.S.-China Relations. The presentation covered the reasons for the loss of land and incentives for farmers to make long-term investments in land, examined the challenges in developing a more equitable approach to urbanization, rural revitalization and stability and provided recommendations on how to ensure secure land rights for hundreds of millions of small farmers and eventually turn them into middle-class consumers and market participants. Prosterman discussed the effect of the land takings on the population: “The dissatisfied farmers outnumber the satisfied ones more than two to one. And indeed, more than one out of six, 17 percent of the affected farmers who have experienced a taking report themselves...
by lwang | May 4, 2012 | Community Development, Landesa, Roy Prosterman
In the mid-1960s, 2006 Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman founded Landesa, using his knowledge and expertise to fight global poverty. Armed with his background as an attorney, he set out to tackle one of the root causes of poverty – rural landlessness. The organization’s work spans across the globe, including India. In fact, Landesa has partnered with India’s Andhra Pradesh government for a legal aid program. Through the program, young people can be trained as paralegals and spread their knowledge to help others understand their rights and secure title, or “patta,” to their land. Reuters shared one individual’s story: “My father-in-law pawned the land for food,” said Kowasalya Thati. “When he returned the grain later, the land owners refused to give it back. They claimed it and we had no document to prove otherwise. For 28 years, we had to work on the land we once owned. Without land, we had nothing … not even enough food. It’s a miracle we got it back.” Landesa says there are plans to bring these barefoot lawyers to other states in the country, further expanding the organization’s impact and reach. Landesa’s India country director Gregory Rake says, “The community-based paralegal model has emerged globally as a cost-effective solution to the problem of access to justice for rural communities.” In fact, a similar scheme is already running in India’s impoverished state of Orissa and will aim to provide half a million poor families with security over their land. “FEATURE-Barefoot lawyers bring food security to India’s tribes” [Reuters, May 2,...
by lwang | Mar 21, 2012 | Award Ceremony, BRAC, FAWE, Landesa, Vicky Colbert
The big day is here! In addition to the 2012 Kravis Prize winners mother2mothers and INJAZ Al-Arab CEO Soraya Salti, we’ll be joined by past winners including Landesa Founder Roy Prosterman, BRAC, FAWE, Escuela Nueva Foundation Founder Vicky Colbert. Our winners will be offering their expert advice and insights on a variety of topics including grassroots innovations for poverty alleviation, innovation in education and community engagement and much more! Check out the live stream here and our live Twitter...
by lwang | Feb 2, 2012 | Female Empowerment, Landesa, Poverty Reduction, Roy Prosterman
Did you know that 42 percent of children under the age of five in India suffer from malnutrition? Thankfully, international development organizations are working to eradicate this problem by implementing health programs and other community development initiatives. One area that might be overlooked, however, is how women’s rights contribute to reaching this goal. The Guardian’s Poverty Matters blog published an article by Renee Giovarelli, executive director of the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights, who discusses how female empowerment affects child malnutrition: “There is growing evidence that the reason for India’s malnourished children is not just empty pockets – it is, specifically, women’s empty pockets. Women in India have a lower status and therefore less control over resources, both land and money, and consequently do not have the leverage to ensure that their children’s needs are met.” Giovarelli also outlines how Landesa and the national and state governments of India are tackling this issue: “Across India, national and some state governments are recognising this and are working to put a powerful asset – land – into the hands of women. … Just last year officials in Odisha state opened the first Women’s Land Rights Facilitations Centre. And officials in West Bengal state have begun adding the names of women to all the land titles they distribute in their micro-plot poverty alleviation programme. Officials in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha and West Bengal are working to ensure that more women find their names on the title documents to the land they till.” “Land rights for women can help ease India’s child malnutrition crisis” [Poverty Matters, January 20, 2012] To learn more...
by lwang | Jan 26, 2012 | BRAC, Escuela Nueva, FAWE, Fazle Abed, Landesa, Pratham, Roy Prosterman
The Global Journal just released their January/February 2012 issue, which for the first time ranked the top 100 best nongovernmental organizations in the world. We’re delighted to announce that FIVE Kravis Prize winners were ranked among the top 50 NGOs! BRAC even made it into the top five and has a nice feature on the website, which also mentions 2007 Kravis Prize winner Sir Fazle Abed. “Established by former Shell Oil executive Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in 1972 soon after the independence of Bangladesh, BRAC was part of an influential wave of organizations – alongside the Grameen Bank and ASA – that went on to revolutionize development strategies not only in their home countries, but across the world. Unlike its counterparts, however, which focused on refining and expanding their pioneering micro-credit and micro-finance models, BRAC also added a range of social programs to the mix and has continued to diversify and leverage its unique ability to achieve economies of scale over time.” Check out what else they had to say about BRAC here and the other Kravis Prize winners that are part of this year’s list, including Escuela Nueva (Founder Vicky Colbert, 2011), Pratham (2010), FAWE (2008) and Landesa (Founder Roy Prosterman,...
