by lwang | Sep 21, 2012 | Female Empowerment, Landesa, Roy Prosterman
In his fight to end global poverty, inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman has made a difference in over 105 million families. Through his founding of Landesa, Prosterman has linked land rights to economic prosperity, determined to arm the world’s poorest communities with rights to their most valuable resource. At the crux of these families are women, which led to the establishment of the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights (LCWLR). In a post on Reuters’ TrustLaw blog, Lian Carl shared his experience working with LCWLR over the past year, with chilling observations of life for women in sub-Saharan Africa. “How can property own property?” was the question continually posed to Carl and his colleagues. Carl discussed how the unequal status of women in the region is crippling to the community as a whole as it has proven to affect a number of developing needs. “Investing in women brings [our] impact to the household level where more of the investment will be made in children, which we know over the long run will improve the economic output of a country. By focusing on women’s land rights, we can significantly reduce poverty.” It is accounts like Carl’s that illustrate the struggle of global poverty, and it is his passion and dedication that drive Landesa’s success. “The Word on Women- A Year’s Reflection on Women’s Land Rights” [TrustLaw, September 17,...
by lwang | Aug 24, 2012 | Community Development, Landesa, Poverty Reduction, Roy Prosterman
In the mid 1960s, inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman, armed with his legal knowledge and expertise, set out to change the world. This led to the establishment of Landesa in 1981, which tackles one of the chief structural causes of global poverty, rural landlessness, by educating people around the world about land rights. In the past 25 years, Landesa has expanded and truly has a global impact. In fact, Dawn recently published an article by Prosterman and Landesa senior attorney Darryl Vhugen, who discussed the importance of upholding land rights in Pakistan: An estimated 4.7 million rural families, comprising around 33 million people, are completely landless across rural Pakistan. Their lack of land rights leaves them with no pathway to escape their deep poverty – no land on which to labour for their own reward, and no opportunity to exercise any entrepreneurial spirit. The authors introduced the idea of house-and-garden plots, which would give the recipient families a “land base” that would allow them to “literally grow themselves out of abject poverty.” “[House-and-garden plots] provide enough space for a family to build a very small house and engage in vegetable gardening, tree cultivation, small-scale raising of livestock, home-based businesses and other income-generating activities. They can make a very large difference in the livelihoods and status of the poor — including the enhancement of the role and status of women, whose names should be included on the title wherever possible — while supplementing and diversifying existing livelihood strategies. … They increase family income, enhance family nutrition, provide physical security, help assure access to a range of government benefits, serve...
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 | 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...
