Annual Report 2016:

Chris JochnickReturn on investment is a simple but powerful formula.

It guides investors to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of their investments.

It also guides Landesa’s work.

For decades, Landesa has been driven to provide our supporters and partners with an outsized return on investment — a large and lasting impact for each dollar spent and hour worked.

Fiscal Year 2016 was no different.

Landesa’s long-term investments in partnerships and programs have helped strengthen land rights for 6.8 million women and 1.3 million men in the past year.

Using a return on investment lens for this year alone: roughly, for every $1.50 Landesa spent, we helped strengthen land rights for one woman or man — a change that provides opportunity, security, and a path to prosperity.

As remarkable as this may seem, it is in line with our historic performance, having helped strengthen land rights for more than 120 million families over the past 49 years.

We are able to achieve this impact because we partner with governments to work toward results at scale. One law or government program can impact hundreds of thousands or millions of rural families who are eager to climb out of poverty but lack a critical foundation — secure rights to land. Our partnerships with other non-profits and progressive corporations to ensure they respect land rights in their policies and programs further amplify our impact.

All of our investments, from engagements with governments to innovative pilots launched with local communities, are designed with one thing in mind: Can we collaborate with local partners to create lasting, systemic change?

This drive towards maximizing sustainable impact informs which countries we work in, what project strategies we pursue, and which partners we work alongside.

Every quarter, we endeavor to measure progress and our contribution to it. We look at tangible short-term benefits as well as longer term, systemic change. Measuring progress in this way brings a host of challenges, but it is increasingly important that we can define a return on investment to make an effective case with governments, corporate actors, civil society allies, communities, and supporters like you.

We recognize that our numbers only tell part of the story and don’t do justice to the transformation underway.

We know that when women and men have secure rights to land, they gain legal control over a valuable asset and the security, opportunity, and incentive to invest in that asset to increase their harvests and improve their lives. Research shows the ripple effect: better nutrition, educational outcomes, environmental sustainability, and a reduction in poverty. When women have more secure rights to land, it empowers them economically and gives them a voice within their household and their community.

In financial year 2016, the countries where we work committed more than US $80 million of their own money to land rights programs that Landesa helped design. That means for every $1 Landesa spent, partner governments spent more than $5 of their own scarce resources.

They did so because they see the highly leveraged, durable, and broad-reaching power of land rights. They recognize that secure rights to land are an essential foundation to a peaceful, sustainable, and prosperous society. They know that the stability and security land rights provide act as an enabler for the long-term success of other interventions including food security programs, health care programs, education programs, and conservation.

Consider just some of the highlights we achieved working with our partners during this year.

In India, we helped the national government draft a model law for legalizing the leasing of farmland.

The model law allows the poor to do something many of us take for granted — legally rent land — providing critical access to farmland for millions of landless families. This new model law has already been adopted by one state and is being considered by several others.

In Myanmar, Landesa regularly briefed the new parliament on the importance of land rights, especially for women, and provided technical advice and support for Myanmar’s first National Land Use Policy and historic land distribution program. The land distribution program, modeled in part on the Landesa-supported micro-plot program in West Bengal, India, will help Myanmar address a vexing problem: how to help the country’s more than three million rural landless families trapped in extreme poverty.

In China, Landesa advised the central government on important policies that have now been adopted by every province across the nation — ensuring that women’s names are included alongside men’s names in land registries. And we worked with partners to advise Shandong Province in its landmark distribution of land titles to rural men and women.

In Ghana, Landesa advised the government on a new national land bill which will protect women’s rights to privately held land. The bill also incorporates critical safeguards requiring traditional chiefs to consult and compensate farmers before using their land for development.

In Kenya, Landesa provided technical advice to the government on its historic Community Land Bill, which creates a striking break from the past by transferring ownership rights to land into the hands of the communities that live, work, and depend on the land. The new bill, signed into law in September 2016, can provide opportunity for an estimated 15 million rural Kenyans.

To see one illustration of return on investment, explore the accompanying slideshow and visit with Suchitra Dey, one of the first micro-plot beneficiaries.

Thank you for supporting Landesa and our efforts to promote a durable path out of poverty for millions of families.

Landesa’s long-term investments in partnerships and programs have helped strengthen land rights for 6.8 million women and

 1.3 million men in the past year.

Using a return on investment lens for this year alone: roughly, for every $1.50 Landesa spent, we helped strengthen land rights for one woman or man — a change that provides opportunity, security, and a path to prosperity.

As remarkable as this may seem, it is in line with our historic performance, having helped strengthen land rights for more than 120 million families over the past 49 years.

We are able to achieve this impact because we partner with governments to work toward results at scale. One law or government program can impact hundreds of thousands or millions of rural families who are eager to climb out of poverty but lack a critical foundation — secure rights to land. Our partnerships with other non-profits and progressive corporations to ensure they respect land rights in their policies and programs further amplify our impact.

All of our investments, from engagements with governments to innovative pilots launched with local communities, are designed with one thing in mind: Can we collaborate with local partners to create lasting, systemic change?

This drive towards maximizing sustainable impact informs which countries we work in, what project strategies we pursue, and which partners we work alongside.

Every quarter, we endeavor to measure progress and our contribution to it. We look at tangible short-term benefits as well as longer term, systemic change. Measuring progress in this way brings a host of challenges, but it is increasingly important that we can define a return on investment to make an effective case with governments, corporate actors, civil society allies, communities, and supporters like you.

We recognize that our numbers only tell part of the story and don’t do justice to the transformation underway.

We know that when women and men have secure rights to land, they gain legal control over a valuable asset and the security, opportunity, and incentive to invest in that asset to increase their harvests and improve their lives. Research shows the ripple effect: better nutrition, educational outcomes, environmental sustainability, and a reduction in poverty. When women have more secure rights to land, it empowers them economically and gives them a voice within their household and their community.

In financial year 2016, the countries where we work committed more than US $80 million of their own money to land rights programs that Landesa helped design. That means for every $1 Landesa spent, partner governments spent more than $5 of their own scarce resources.

They did so because they see the highly leveraged, durable, and broad-reaching power of land rights. They recognize that secure rights to land are an essential foundation to a peaceful, sustainable, and prosperous society. They know that the stability and security land rights provide act as an enabler for the long-term success of other interventions including food security programs, health care programs, education programs, and conservation.

Consider just some of the highlights we achieved working with our partners during this year.

In India, we helped the national government draft a model law for legalizing the leasing of farmland.

The model law allows the poor to do something many of us take for granted — legally rent land — providing critical access to farmland for millions of landless families. This new model law has already been adopted by one state and is being considered by several others.

In Myanmar, Landesa regularly briefed the new parliament on the importance of land rights, especially for women, and provided technical advice and support for Myanmar’s first National Land Use Policy and historic land distribution program. The land distribution program, modeled in part on the Landesa-supported micro-plot program in West Bengal, India, will help Myanmar address a vexing problem: how to help the country’s more than three million rural landless families trapped in extreme poverty.

In China, Landesa advised the central government on important policies that have now been adopted by every province across the nation — ensuring that women’s names are included alongside men’s names in land registries. And we worked with partners to advise Shandong Province in its landmark distribution of land titles to rural men and women.

In Ghana, Landesa advised the government on a new national land bill which will protect women’s rights to privately held land. The bill also incorporates critical safeguards requiring traditional chiefs to consult and compensate farmers before using their land for development.

In Kenya, Landesa provided technical advice to the government on its historic Community Land Bill, which creates a striking break from the past by transferring ownership rights to land into the hands of the communities that live, work, and depend on the land. The new bill, signed into law in September 2016, can provide opportunity for an estimated 15 million rural Kenyans.

To see one illustration of return on investment, explore the accompanying slideshow and visit with Suchitra Dey, one of the first micro-plot beneficiaries.

Thank you for supporting Landesa and our efforts to promote a durable path out of poverty for millions of families.