by lwang | Feb 11, 2013 | Community Development, Landesa, Poverty Reduction, Tim Hanstad
More than 25 years after inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman founded Landesa to focus on one of the chief structural causes of global poverty – rural landlessness – Landesa’s current president and CEO was inspired to re-focus his approach to leading the organization at the Sundance Film Festival. Writing at the Huffington Post’s Social Entrepreneurship blog, Tim Hanstad shared how the festival offered him more than a glimpse of the year’s best independent films. It also showed him how to leverage storytelling to achieve large-scale social impact. In what he termed a “confession,” Hanstad described how the festival helped him better understand the origins of his own passion for the cause of land rights: As a data-driven leader, for years I have carried a prejudice against the value and power of storytelling, often thinking of stories as too anecdotal, bordering on the shallow. I thought a powerful story was a relaxing respite from metrics, serving more or less as a colorful parenthesis within an analytical argument. Yet through our discussions, I realized that my own calling to global poverty began not with data, but through hearing the stories of fellow agricultural day laborers, whom I worked beside as I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. You see, I trace my initial interest and motivation for working on global poverty issues to a summer when I was 10 years old, working in the berry fields along with Mexican migrant families. Interacting with the Mexican migrant children opened my eyes to social injustice – they worked so hard, yet had so little. They migrated with the harvests, moving from farm...
by lwang | Jan 12, 2012 | Education, Landesa, Roy Prosterman, Tim Hanstad
2006 Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman’s organization, Landesa, which helps the world’s poor secure land rights, has come a long way since its inception in 1981. Today, their work spans all across the globe, including Odisha, India, and impacts development in a variety of ways. For example, did you know that the lack of land titles could affect one’s access to educational opportunities? In an article published in the Huffington Post, Landesa President and CEO Tim Hanstad explains that owning land titles is crucial to improving school enrollment rates in developing countries: “So, what can be done to make sure that all children get that chance? Part of the answer lies in the land. In the [Indian] state of Odisha, at least 40 percent of rural families, many of whom are tribal, lack legal rights to the land on which they depend. Often they’ve been farming this land for generations but without legal title. Without this documentation, they often cannot access the free tuition and related services and subsidies to which they are entitled.” Thankfully, Landesa has partnered with the Odisha government to help families gain their land patta, or land title document, which has helped many children receive the free admission or stipends that the Indian government provides to certain tribes. During a visit, Hanstad made some observations on how the land titles have impacted the society: “As I saw in Odisha, land rights not only yield productive farmers. They also nurture students who grow to become engineers, doctors, executives, parents, elected officials, scientists and productive members of society in countless other ways. That ‘second harvest’ has an...
by lwang | Oct 26, 2011 | Landesa, Roy Prosterman, Sustainable Development, Tim Hanstad
As China’s economy develops, so does its landscape. But, according to Bloomberg, not always with the consent of Chinese farmers or landowners. Bloomberg reported that in China, “city governments rely on land sales for much of their revenue” and that the country is “increasingly seeking to cash in on real estate prices that have risen 140 percent since 1998 by appropriating land and flipping it to developers for huge profits.” The Wall Street Journal recently published an op-ed by Landesa President and CEO Tim Hanstad, who also discussed the lack of property rights for Chinese farmers. Hanstad cited significant findings from Landesa’s nationwide survey, which he said shed light on how rural reforms can help maintain “continued growth and social harmony” in China. “Only about half of all villages have given farmers legal documentation of their land rights. Local authorities are charged by the central government with issuing such documents, but often lack the political will or funding to do so. Lack of this kind of documentation is a significant economic hurdle. Landesa’s survey found that farmers with legal land contracts are 76% more likely to make long-term, productivity-enhancing investments such as greenhouses, orchards, irrigation and terracing. By fully implementing current laws and protecting farmers’ land rights, China’s government could effectively increase farmers’ land values (for agricultural use only) by roughly $750 billion, according to Landesa’s estimates.” Gao Yu, China director of Landesa, also sounded off on Chinese land development, noting that “the seizures frequently lead to local officials violating farmers’ rights that the national government has sought to improve since 1998 when it gave them 30-year tenure over...
