INDIA
Community Resource Persons: Hope for the Landless Poor
The government of the Indian state of Odisha invited Landesa to assess its program to provide homestead land to half a million rural poor who owned no land.
<< Click the graphic to the left to show the four steps of this project. (Clockwise, starting with Research)
INDIA
Step 1: Research
Landesa and local researchers met with poor rural families and officials in 88 villages across ten districts in the state. They found that government land administrators had insufficient capacity to identify eligible families or provide the homestead plots on the scale required to meet the government's high goals.
INDIA
Step 2: Design
Landesa used their research findings and knowledge from similar situations in other states to design a strategy for supplementing the government's capacity. The solution was to hire and train village youth (called Community Resource Persons) to work in the village to identify poor rural families without title to a homestead plot, and help these families navigate the government process for obtaining a land title.
INDIA
Step 3: Advocate
Landesa then presented their findings and recommendations to the state government and met with senior officials to explore how the Community Resource Persons model could be tested and eventually scaled.
INDIA
Step 4: Implement
The Odisha government invited Landesa to help test the model in several pilot villages, training staff and monitoring implementation. The pilots were successful and the state has now adopted the model in seven districts. Landesa helped design and is actively supporting implementation of the scaling plan, which is increasing the government's capacity to provide homestead plots to landless families in a cost-effective and impactful way.
CHINA
Land rights registration: Documenting and securing farmers' land rights
Landesa is working with the Chinese government to develop effective programs and institutions to document and confirm farmers' land rights to every parcel across the entire country through a land registration pilot program.
<< Click the graphic to the left to show the four steps of this project. (Clockwise, starting with Research)
CHINA
Step 1: Research
During six rounds of nationwide surveys across 17 provinces, and hundreds of rounds of rapid rural appraisals, Landesa identified a key problem in rural China: the majority of Chinese farming families lack good documentation of their land rights.
CHINA
Step 2: Design
Landesa used these research findings and knowledge from present land registration pilot projects, as well as comparative international experiences, to design a strategy to improve the existing documentation process. Landesa is now working to scale up present pilot projects so that farm families' land rights and parcel information are fully and accurately recorded in a system that is publicly accessible and includes the land rights of both male and female farmers.
CHINA
Step 3: Advocate
Landesa presented its findings and recommendations to both the central and local governments, and met with senior officials to explore testing and scaling the land registration pilot program.
CHINA
Step 4: Implement
Anhui province adopted Landesa's advice and invited Landesa to work closely on its pilot project to design, train, build capacity, increase grassroots publicity, and improve dispute resolution mechanism for their pilot program. The pilot was a success and Landesa is now actively working with the national government to establish relevant regulations and guidelines on rural land registration based on the pilot experiences. The national registration system will eventually strengthen the tenure security for hundreds of millions of farm families in China.
RWANDA
A Snapshot of Women's Land Rights in Rwanda: How can they be protected and strengthened as the Land Law is implemented?
After five years of technical assistance advising the Government of Rwanda on their legal framework governing land, Landesa's support shifted to implementing the country's new land law. This law, for the first time in the country's history, formalized land tenure, providing farmers across Rwanda with legal proof that the parcel they farm is theirs. This legal proof allows farmers to use their land as collateral for a bank loan, defend their plot from theft, and pass it along to their children without interference. Landesa developed programs in Rwanda to ensure that women understood the formalization process and could benefit from these historic changes.
<< Click the graphic to the left to show the four steps of this project. (Clockwise, starting with Research)
RWANDA
Step 1: Research
Landesa conducted field research, interviewing women's organizations and rural women, to understand the opportunities and constraints that women face in accessing and owning land.
RWANDA
Step 2: Design
Landesa analyzed the research and developed recommendations based on the research findings and knowledge from other countries. Landesa also held a workshop with officials to design improved laws, programs, and procedures that are compatible with reality for rural women.
RWANDA
Step 3: Advocate
Landesa worked with policymakers and other government officials to ensure that the land formalization process was effective in recognizing women's land rights.
RWANDA
Step 4: Implement
The Rwandan government adopted Landesa's recommendations on a small scale to pilot their effectiveness. Our work continued by gathering additional research findings from the pilot, which are now being used as the government scales this work across the country.