Landesa
| Founded | 1967 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Roy Prosterman |
| Type |
Non-operating private foundation (IRS exemption status): 501(c)(3) |
| Focus | Land rights, Women's rights, Ending poverty |
| Location | |
|
Key people
|
Chris Jochnick, President and CEO Roy Prosterman, Founder and Chairman Emeritus Tim Hanstad, Co-Founder and Senior Advisor |
| Slogan | "Securing land rights for the world's poorest people" |
| Website | www.landesa.org Donate |
Landesa Rural Development Institute is a nonprofit organization that partners with governments and local organizations to secure legal land rights for world’s poorest families. Since 1967, Landesa has helped more than 100 million poor families in 35 countries gain legal control over their land. When families have secure rights to land, they can invest in their land to sustainably increase their harvests and reap the benefits—improved nutrition, health, education, and dignity.
Landesa partners with governments, world leaders, NGOs, foundations, donor agencies such as the World Bank, USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and others to design and implement land laws, policies and programs that provide opportunity, further economic growth and promote social justice through land rights.
Based in Seattle, Landesa has program offices in Beijing, China; Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, India. Landesa currently works in China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Liberia, Rwanda, and Uganda.
Landesa was founded as the Rural Development Institute in 1967 by Professor Roy Prosterman, a Harvard Law School graduate who left his Wall Street career at Sullivan & Cromwell to teach at the University of Washington School of Law where he established the Law in Sustainable Development Program. Troubled by the escalating Vietnam War, Prosterman recognized that secure land rights could provide the rural poor a place to grow food to feed their family and a foundation to raise themselves out of poverty without being forced to join the Viet Cong. His “land to the tiller” program led to a 30% increase in rice production, and an 80% decrease in Viet Cong recruitment.
Since its founding, Landesa has had one specific goal: securing land rights for the world’s poorest people. This is because more than two billion people lives in extreme poverty, surviving on $2 a day or less. Of those, more than 75 percent live in rural areas and rely on agriculture for their sustenance. Most do not have secure rights to land and therefore, limited opportunity to build a better future for themselves and their family. True ownership of land in the developing world determines access to shelter, income, education, healthcare, and improves economic and nutritional security.
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