DOCSLIB.ORG

Secure Land Rights: the Key to Building 2 0 0 9 a Better, Safer World

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Secure Land Rights: the Key to Building 2 0 0 9 a Better, Safer World Secure Land Rights: The Key To Building 2 0 0 9 A Better, Safer World. ANNUAL REPORT C O N T E N T S Just Imagine . 1 Secure Letter from the Board Chair . 2 land rights Letter from the President and CEO . .3 change lives. Land Rights: A Sustainable Solution . .4 In 2009, RDI published One Billion Rising, a compilation Where We’ve of more than 40 years of knowledge, lessons learned, and Worked . 6 sustainable solutions regarding the power of land rights to help Current alleviate global poverty . Initiatives . 7 Throughout this annual report, you will find examples of wisdom Global Center found within One Billion Rising, which is dedicated to the more for Women’s than one billion people living on less than $1 .40 erp day . Land Rights . .8 RDI is headquartered in Seattle, with offices around the world . Cao Fengping’s In India, RDI has established a national office and four regional Story . .10 offices in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, and West Bengal . Offices are also in Beijing, China, as well as the Legal Highlights of Aid Center in Vladimir, Russia . the Year . .12 Worldwide, RDI employs more than 50 people, and in 2009 Financials . .14 had a budget of $4 .3 million . Donors and Partners . .15 Board of Cover: A girl in Andhra Pradesh, Directors . .16 India, where RDI is working on women’s access and rights to land. RDI Staff . .17 Photo © Deborah Espinosa Reducing poverty by securing land rights can be affordable. With a “micro-plot” as small ONE as one-tenth of an acre, a poor, landless family in India can grow all their vegetables, nearly all their fruit, and still have space for livestock or a home business. Plus, they can earn $200 cash from surplus crops – about as BILLION much as an agricultural worker makes in a year. Chapter 4 RISING 1 GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY STARTS WITH SECURE LAND RIGHTS. A farmer in Hunan province, China. CONSIDER CHINA As history has shown, secure long- poor farmers with stronger, more Imagine what Chinese farmers earn an average of term land rights can be key to the secure rights, giving them incentive $1 .30 a day – barely enough to feed foundation of sustainable economic to invest in the land, increasing an increase in their children . growth and social stability . Look no agricultural production and helping to income for 800 Without secure rights to the land further than to neighboring Taiwan alleviate food shortages . they till, farmers have little incentive for proof . million people to invest in the land, keeping them If China’s new land laws are reliant on short-term cash crops and supported by education and careful would do for the leading many to migrate to cities for implementation at the local level, better wages . these laws can benefit 800 million ION global economy. 2 L E T T E R F R O M T H E THIS YEAR I COMPLETED experience for me . At first, the focus RDI headquarters in Seattle . Secure BOARD CHAIR my ninth year and final term as RDI’s of RDI’s work was helping the USSR’s land rights for women not only Board Chair . During this time, I was central government create legislation increase food security but also lead privileged to witness firsthand the that provided secure, private land rights to better nutrition and education for results of RDI’s field work in India, to farm land that had previously been their children . During my service China and Indonesia . It has been a collectivized . While RDI still performs on the board, RDI has matured fulfilling and extraordinary learning legal reform work, its efforts now greatly – expanding in size, scope extend far beyond crafting legislation and capability . Its focus is to build to the critically important sphere of stronger support for land rights within implementation and enforcement of the overall international development private land rights . Strategies that are community including partnering – appropriate for particular cultures, where desirable and appropriate – to traditions, technology and political increase opportunities available to environment are incorporated in the world’s poorest population . The developing countries around the world . recent, very generous grant from the As I witnessed RDI’s field work, I Omidyar Network has been of material was impressed with the organization’s importance toward propelling RDI’s ability to provide a wide variety of skills strategy forward . as well as knowledge and flexibility to Over the past nine years, I have supply workable solutions to problems been impressed with the power in a variety of countries . that secure land rights have toward One relatively recent, but important, helping the world’s poorest people rise aspect of RDI’s work has been its from extreme poverty, giving them appreciation of the central role that opportunities to improve the quality of women play in the alleviation of their lives . I encourage you to add your extreme poverty . One of this year’s support to this important work . highlights is the creation of the Global Sincerely, Center for Women’s Land Rights at RDI Founder Roy James C . Pigott Prosterman (L) and Jim Pigott (R) in China with Chair, RDI Board of Directors rural children. Women without assets are vulnerable to violence. In India, a recent study found that 49% of women who did not have secure property rights experienced long-term physical ONE violence, and 84% experienced long-term psychological violence. Of the women who owned both BILLION land and property, 7% reported physical violence and 16 % reported psychological violence. So women without land and property were seven times more likely to experience physical violence. Chapter 5 RISING 3 L E T T E R F R O M T H E Today, we are confident that by working Network (ON) . This generous gift is is changing, expanding, and building PRESIDENT & CEO with governments in China, India, an affirmation of the value of the 40 new capabilities to operate across an Africa, and elsewhere, we can help years of work and accomplishment by increased range of contexts . developing country governments with the entire RDI team . The ON grant We are ready to help many more people S E C U R E L A N D R I G H T S reforms that will provide opportunity is also an opportunity for leveraging lead better lives, and we will always I M P R O V E L I V E S . for 20 million people to move out your support, as $2 .5 million of that deeply appreciate the support of all of When people – even the worlds of extreme poverty and play a part grant is subject to raising an equivalent you who make this possible . poorest – can work land with in building prosperous and peaceful matching amount . confidence that their families and societies . Our recently enacted Five While the opportunities are communities will receive the benefits, Year Strategic Plan, which includes a unprecedented, the challenges are they can rise from extreme poverty strong focus on women’s land rights, is sobering . RDI’s work has been permanently . This is established fact, designed to do exactly this . It is being Tim Hanstad immensely successful, but it is always based on over 40 years of research and propelled forward by the recent three- President and CEO complex and difficult . The organization program experience . year, $9 million grant from the Omidyar Secure land rights are also a building block for prosperous and peaceful societies . Countries that offer both broad-based and secure property rights are proven to grow faster and be less conflicted . RDI is now in a strong position to step up our efforts to help millions of people by expanding our programs and by working to build support within the international development community for land rights strategies . As we have built our foundation for this next chapter of RDI’s work, we have been guided by the leadership and counsel of Jim Pigott, our remarkable board chair who will be passing the gavel on in early 2010 after nine productive years of board guidance . Jim has encouraged RDI to dream big . Given RDI’s past success on reforms that have positively impacted over 100 million families, and given the remaining need for reforms to benefit millions more, ION dreaming big made sense . Tim Hanstad in India conducting field interviews with farmers. 4 Global poverty is overwhelmingly policies and programs that support fair B E N E F I T S O F S E C U R E Land rural . More than half of the world’s and democratic development . LAND RIGHTS population lives in extreme poverty, Benefits to person: Global experience has shown that surviving on $2 a day or less, and of secure land rights provide a foundation • Source of shelter Rights: A those, more than 75 percent live in for improved livelihoods and living rural areas and rely on agriculture • Source of nutrition and health conditions . Studies show that land for their sustenance . Most do not • Source of income rights facilitate multiple benefits that Sustainable have secure rights to land, their most lead to a safer, more just world . • Status, inclusion and empowerment valuable asset . Land defines their • Facilitates investment, productivity access to shelter, income, education, Solution SYSTEMIC CHANGE and stewardship healthcare, plus economic and Access to credit nutritional security . Secure land rights are not a complete • cure for poverty, but they provide one • Opportunities for education of the best first steps . Providing secure USING THE RULE OF LAW • Wealth building land rights is highly leveraged, feasible Secure land rights are a key foundation and cost-effective .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 3.4 Million Farming Families Receive Legal Access to Land in Rural China, India
    PRESS RELEASE December 20, 2011 Contact: Rena Singer [email protected] Tel: (206) 257-6136 3.4 million farming families receive legal access to land in rural China, India Landesa’s model of partnering with governments helps scale programs that provide land ownership opportunities for the world’s rural poor SEATTLE –Landesa, which works with governments and local NGOs to create laws, policies, and programs that provide secure land rights for the world’s poorest, reported today in its 2011 Fiscal Year Annual Report that its partnerships in India and China over the last year helped more than 3.4 million farming families receive secure rights to their land, providing these families with a foundation to escape extreme poverty and build a better future. “Our latest numbers demonstrate that broad-based efforts to strengthen land rights and alleviate rural poverty are most effective when governments are a central part of the equation,” said Tim Hanstad, president and CEO of Landesa, which recently won the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship for its focus on citizen-driven change. “Many of our largest funding partners, including the Omidyar Network and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, recognize the immense value of a policy-based approach in achieving long-term, structural change.” Since its inception 46 years ago, Landesa has partnered with governments on reforms that have helped more than 109 million families gain secure rights to land and the opportunity for a better life. Each of its programs is rooted in the basic idea that the world’s rural poor share two traits: they depend on agriculture to survive, but lack secure rights to the land they till.
    [Show full text]
  • Announcement Release 2013
    THE HENRY R. KRAVIS PRIZE IN LEADERSHIP FOR 2013 AWARDED TO JOHANN OLAV KOSS FOUR-TIME OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST-TURNED- NONPROFIT LEADER Olympic speed skater from Norway founded Right To Play, an organization that uses the transformative power of play to educate and empower children facing adversity. Claremont, Calif., March 6, 2013–– Claremont McKenna College (CMC) announced today that four-time Olympic gold medalist and nonprofit leader Johann Olav Koss has been awarded the eighth annual Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership. The Kravis Prize, which carries a $250,000 award designated to the recipient organization, recognizes extraordinary leadership in the nonprofit sector. Koss will be presented with The Kravis Prize at a ceremony on April 18 held on the CMC campus. Founded in 2000 by Koss, Right To Play is a global organization that uses the transformative power of play to educate and empower children facing adversity. Right To Play’s impact is focused on four areas: education, health, peace building, and community development. Right To Play reaches 1 million children in more than 20 countries through play programming that teaches them the skills to build better futures, while driving social change in their communities. The organization promotes the involvement of all children and youth by engaging with girls, persons with disabilities, children affected by HIV/AIDS, as well as former combatants and refugees. “We use play as a way to teach and empower children,” Koss says. “Play can help children overcome adversity and understand there are people who believe in them. We would like every child to understand and accept their own abilities, and to have hopes and dreams.
    [Show full text]
  • Women's Secure Rights to Land
    Women’s Secure Rights to Land Benefits, Barriers, and Best Practices October 2012 Introduction Land is typically the most important asset for food, health, and educational needs, it also people in the developing world, the majority of 1 undermines agricultural productivity. whom depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Secure rights to land can increase agricultural Thus, any effort seeking to reach the rural poor, productivity and income, address food insecurity, improve food production, and reduce poverty must and alleviate poverty. So it is little wonder that address the importance of women’s land rights. landlessness is often recognized as the best predictor of poverty and hunger in the world. Women’s Secure Land Rights Lay the Foundation for Socioeconomic Advances With this understanding, major land reform efforts over the last 50 years have focused on ensuring Secure land rights are a building block for that families gain secure rights to the land they agricultural productivity and the social and occupy and farm. But what was little understood at economic empowerment of rural households. the time is that it matters tremendously not only if Smallholder farmers with secure land rights have the household has secure rights to land, but also greater incentive to make productivity-enhancing who in the household has those rights. Over the investments because they can be more confident last decade, it has become increasingly clear that in recouping those investments over the medium the improvements in household welfare are 3 and long term. Secure rights to land can thus typically more pronounced when women hold the confer economic benefits.
    [Show full text]
  • Women's Land Rights Visiting Professionals Program Frequently
    Women’s Land Rights Visiting Professionals Program Frequently Asked Questions What is the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights? The Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights (“the Center”) is an initiative of Landesa that champions women’s secure access to land by providing resources and training that connects policymakers, researchers, and practitioners around the world. We pilot innovative solutions to secure women’s land rights and educate development experts about the gap between customary and institutional law. Our goals are to strengthen women’s property rights in law and in practice in countries where we work, and to build women’s land rights capacity globally through an E-Library; a Fellowship Program; and, a Visiting Professionals Program. Why Do We Focus on Women’s Land Rights? Three quarters of the 1.2 billion people surviving on less than a dollar a day live and work in rural areas. For most of them land is a key input– their ability to lift themselves out of poverty is strongly influenced by the extent to which they have secure access to and control over a plot of land. Women are particularly vulnerable. They may lose access or control over land when they get married, get divorced, become widows, or their husbands take another wife. They may be prevented from inheriting land from their parents. They may not have a say into how the family land is used or how the income it generates is allocated. They may not know their rights. They may not be able to enforce the rights they do have.
    [Show full text]
  • Indigenous Food Cultures: Pedagogical Implication for Environmental Education
    Global governance/politics, climate justice & agrarian/social justice: linkages and challenges An international colloquium 4‐5 February 2016 Colloquium Paper No. 2 Indigenous Food Cultures: Pedagogical Implication for Environmental Education Suleyman Demi International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) Kortenaerkade 12, 2518AX The Hague, The Netherlands Organized jointly by: With funding assistance from: Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the authors in their private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of organizers and funders of the colloquium. February, 2016 Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ICAS_Agrarian https://twitter.com/TNInstitute https://twitter.com/peasant_journal Check regular updates via ICAS website: www.iss.nl/icas Indigenous Food Cultures: Pedagogical Implication for Environmental Education Suleyman Demi Abstract1 Climate change is one of the most serious problems facing the world today. Recent happenings around the world: rampant and severe floods in parts of Asia, severe drought and water shortage in parts of Africa and extremely cold winters and warmer summers around the temperate regions, particularly American and Europe, have caused even the intransigent critics of climate change to recognize that it is real. One area that will experience the devastating effects of climate change is the food sector. Ironically, industrial agriculture has been identified as one of the leading causes of climate change across the globe. Studies have revealed that the global increase in methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere is primarily caused by agriculture (FAO, 2015). The global estimation of anthropogenic emissions in 2005 attributed 60% of nitrous oxide emissions and 50% of methane emissions to agriculture (Smith et al., 2007), and these proportions are expected to increase by 30% by 2050 according to recent estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2015).
    [Show full text]
  • About Landesa
    SECURING LAND RIGHTS FOR THE WORLD’S POOREST PEOPLE ABOUT LANDESA MISSION Landesa works to secure land rights for the world’s poorest people—the 2.47 billion chiefly rural people who live on less than two dollars a day. Landesa partners with developing country governments to design and implement laws, policies, and programs concerning land that provide opportunity, further sustainable economic growth, and promote social justice. WHY LAND RIGHTS MATTER and economic incentives. Our land rights A majority of the world’s poorest share two programs are not confiscatory or punitive. traits: they rely on agriculture to survive, but • Our land rights programs strengthen the they don’t have secure rights to the land they rights of existing landholders with tenuous till. This paradox is one of the root causes of legal claims, while broadening secure land global poverty. access for the poorest people. In fact, landlessness is one of the best • Our work is often focused on providing predictors of extreme poverty. Without secure micro-ownership for landless families. Our land rights, families can’t invest in the land research shows that a family can raise itself they farm to improve their harvests and build a from poverty on as a little as 1/10th of an better future. They are in a poverty trap. acre. However, when a family has control over their • We place special emphasis on establishing land, they have opportunity. Nutrition and and protecting land rights for women and health improve, children attend school longer, inheritance rights for girls. the family’s finances improve as does their Our work is by invitation, and ranges from access to credit and other government services.
    [Show full text]
  • Gender & Collectively Held Land
    GENDER & COLLECTIVELY HELD LAND GOOD PRACTICES & LESSONS LEARNED FROM SIX GLOBAL CASE STUDIES Gender & Collectively Held Land Good Practices & Lessons Learned From Six Global Case Studies by Renée Giovarelli, Amanda Richardson, Elisa Scalise ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study was initially developed at Landesa and was produced by Resource Equity in collaboration with Landesa. The study team included Elisa Scalise, Amanda Richardson, Renée Giovarelli, Leslie Hannay, Hirut Girma, Reem Gaafar, Asyl Undeland, and Xiaobei Wang. The synthesis was drafted by Renée Giovarelli, Amanda Richardson, and Elisa Scalise. Technical input and support for the case study research, drafting, and review was provided by Nana Ama Yirrah, Ernest Eshun, Prem Kumar Anand, Sharmistha Bose, Birendra Kumar, Victor Endo, Luzmila Freese, Gladys Vila, and the staff of each organization profiled. The synthesis report was externally peer reviewed by Ruth Meinzen- Dick and Kysseline Cherestal. The editing of the synthesis was done by Robert Mitchell, Diana Fletschner, Tzili Mor, and Frederick Kaplan. Cover photo courtesy of Amanda Richardson. The case study authors were: Xiaobei Wang for China, Amanda Richardson and Reem Gaafar for Ghana, Amanda Richardson for India, Asyl Undeland and Elisa Scalise for The Kyrgyz Republic, Hirut Girma for Namibia, and Leslie Hannay for Peru. The case studies were peer reviewed by Xiaopeng Pang, Prisca Mamdimika, Madhu Sarin, Eric Yeboah, and Victor Endo. Copyright © 2016 Resource Equity and Landesa. All Rights Reserved. CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. 1 5. Determine how best to ensure that women receive the information they need to realize their rights to I. INTRODUCTION. 3 collective land and resources. 19 II. KEY DEFINITIONS . 4 Risks to women’s land tenure security .
    [Show full text]
  • Landless Youth: a Barrier to Agricultural Transformation and Youth Economic Empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa
    LANDLESS YOUTH: A BARRIER TO AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AND YOUTH ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA The rapid spread of mobile phones across Africa has ignited hope that technology will play a crucial role in adapting the continent’s agriculture sector to climate change. Information Communication Technol- ogy (ICT) holds immense potential for farmers: from providing updated weather forecasts and market price information to diagnosing crop diseases and offering tips on best practices, ICTs provide farmers with access to information necessary to adapt to climatic uncertainty. However, taking a closer look reveals that current farmers may not be well positioned to utilize these technologies. Lost in the frenzy of attention on Africa’s youth bulge is the fact that the average African farmer is 60 years old. Usage of mobile phones, especially ones that access the internet, varies significantly by age group: those aged 18-25 have mobile phone internet access (57%) at nearly triple the rate of those aged 56 and above (20%). Additionally, 86% of those 56 and above never use the internet, greatly limiting the potential rate of ICT adoption for the older age groups that control the majority of farmland. These statistics, in addition to higher levels of education for the younger generations, suggest youth are better positioned to realize the full range of benefits ICTs can bring, yet youth are increasingly turning away from agriculture. Despite a common misperception that youth are not interested in farming, data suggests that they would be but for structural impediments such as a lack of secure access and rights to land.
    [Show full text]
  • 98-China Land Management
    RDI Reports on Foreign Aid and Development #98 RURAL LAND REFORM IN CHINA AND THE 1998 LAND MANAGEMENT LAW Roy Prosterman Tim Hanstad Brian Schwarzwalder Li Ping December 1998 This report may be reproduced in whole or in part with acknowledgment as to source. © Copyright Rural Development Institute 1999 ISSN 1071-7099 The Rural Development Institute, located in Seattle, Washington, is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation. RDI is a unique organization of lawyers devoted to problems of land reform and related issues in less developed countries and economies in transition. RDI’s goal is to assist in alleviating world poverty and instability through land reform and rural development. RDI staff have conducted fieldwork and advised on land reform issues in 34 countries in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. For more information about the Rural Development Institute, visit the RDI Web site at www.rdiland.org. Roy Prosterman, J.D., is president of RDI and Professor of Law at the University of Washington. Tim Hanstad is Executive Director of RDI and Assistant Affiliate Professor of Law at the University of Washington. Brian Schwarzwalder, J.D., is a Staff Attorney and the China Program Coordinator at RDI. Li Ping, M.P.A., is an RDI Research Associate. The authors express their appreciation to the LeBrun Foundation, the William H. Gates Foundation, and others whose generous assistance made this report possible. Correspondence may be addressed to the authors at the Rural Development Institute, 4746 11th Avenue N.E., #504, Seattle, Washington 98105, U.S.A., faxed to (206) 528-5881, or e-mailed to <[email protected]>.
    [Show full text]
  • Boost Women's Economic Empowerment
    Boost Women’s Economic Empowerment Prepared by: Elise Young, FHI 360 Reviewed by: Genine Babakian, Consultant; Juliana Bennington, Women Deliver; Mary Crippen, Women Deliver; Maria DeVoe, Women Deliver; Tatiana DiLanzo, Women Deliver; Louise Dunn, Meeting the demand to Women Deliver; Katja Iversen, Women Deliver; Jessica Malter, Women Deliver; Tzili Mor, Landesa boost women’s economic Center for Women’s Land Rights; Susan Papp, Women Deliver; Savannah Russo, Women Deliver; Liuba empowerment is linked Grechen Shirley, Consultant; Petra ten Hoope-Bender, Women Deliver to the achievement of several of the Sustainable OVERVIEW Development Goals (SDGs) and targets, including: Women around the world are resilient and resourceful economic agents, overcoming persistent, gender-based barriers to advance the health, education, and economic survival of their families. Every SDG Goal 1: End poverty in all its day, women demonstrate they can build informal and formal businesses out of very little capital, create forms everywhere networks to maximize limited resources, and shoulder the care-taking responsibilities, which often • 1.4 By 2030, ensure that all men include cooking, cleaning, and caring for children, the sick, and the elderly. Women succeed in spite and women, in particular the poor of laws, policies, and institutions that hold them back. This brief examines opportunities to create a and the vulnerable, have equal supportive environment for women to thrive economically. rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, SECTION 1: FRAMING THE ISSUE ownership and control over land and other forms of property, The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) address obstacles that continue to hinder women’s inheritance, natural resources, economic progress, advancing a new paradigm of economic empowerment.
    [Show full text]
  • Research Report
    RESEARCH REPORT China’s Farmers Benefiting from Land Tenure Reform Findings from 2010 survey of 17-provinces in rural China show that reforms have boosted farm incomes but significant challenges remain. FEBRUARY 2011 – China continues to boost economic development in the countryside by extending secure land tenure rights to its 200 million farming families, according to findings from a 17 province survey, published in the 2011 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Rule of Law Blue Book. The survey, highlights continuing successes and significant emerging challenges to sustainable economic development in China’s rural areas. China’s modern-era land tenure reforms, which began with the break-up of the collective farms into individual smallholdings in 1979-84, are ongoing. These reforms are credited by economists at the World Bank with jumpstarting the largest and most successful poverty reduction program in history. “The Chinese government has put many policies in place to provide secure long-term use rights for agricultural land,” said Jeffrey M. Riedinger, Dean of International Studies & Programs, Michigan State University and one of the study’s authors. “Continued progress for farmers will be linked to how well those policies are understood and implemented at the local level.” At its foundation, China’s current land tenure reform program –embodied in a series of laws adopted beginning in 1998—gives farmers 30-year, extendable rights to their parcels. Land rights certificates and land rights contracts distributed by local governments are intended to provide farmers further assurance that they can stay on their present parcels for the long term. These measures are meant to create an environment of secure land tenure and thereby lead to increased investment, increased productivity and higher farm incomes.
    [Show full text]
  • CREATE a RIPPLE EFFECT
    CREATE a RIPPLE EFFECT LANDESA We empower millions of people worldwide with land rights—a powerful tool that breaks the cycle of poverty and delivers transformative change. 100+ 50+ 550M global land COUNTRIES PEOPLE EXPERTS with demonstrated with secure rights success to their land Landesa is the recognized global leader in advancing land rights for the world’s poorest women and men. • 2017 LUI Che Woo Prize, Betterment of the Welfare of Mankind • 2015 Hilton Humanitarian Prize • 2012 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, Skoll Foundation Our work to ensure that the world’s rural poor have secure land rights creates opportunities for women, improves environmental stewardship in the face of climate change, and spurs lasting economic growth. Landesa’s work on land rights creates a wave of impact, starting with people who have the least access to power and rippling outward to communities, to countries, and across the globe. What are land rights? Land rights are a legal and social guarantee to manage, use, and inherit land, through ownership or long-term tenure rights. More than a billion people lack rights to the land they use to survive, causing cycles of poverty to persist over generations. 2 | Create a Ripple Effect “ The world needs Landesa so everyone can have the chance to better themselves and their families, on their own. Landesa provides the starter kit. People take it and soar.” —REBECCA KENNEDY, Donor Landesa | 3 Secure land rights are a legal and social guarantee of ownership of or long-term claims on land. When honored by both law and practice, land rights allow people to plant crops, knowing they will be able to harvest them.
    [Show full text]