Plotlines 2011 - Landesa's External Newsletter
In this issue:
Feature Story: Focus on Africa
Program Updates: Burkina Faso, Rwanda, China, Women
From Our Field Focus Blog
Landesa in the News & Online
Staff Speaking Engagements

Feature Story

Focus on AfricaFocus on Africa Land Tenure & Property Rights website

Landesa launched the Focus on Africa website at the annual World Bank Conference on Land & Poverty on April 18. The website is an interactive education tool on land tenure and property rights issues in Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda. Landesa produced content for the website in partnership with the World Resources Institute and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The site features multimedia lessons with diagrams, slideshows, maps, and videos in additional to traditional research documents from laws to academic articles.

 

Program Updates

Africa

Woman from Burkina Faso mapping community land plotsBurkina Faso
Landesa conducted an extensive study on women's land rights in Burkina Faso for Catholic Relief Services from January to March, 2011 with the aim of helping them develop programs that help women improve their harvests. For this assessment, our researchers met with women in rural villages and local leaders to assess women's rights to land and natural resources, household divisions of agricultural labor, access to market, and household decision-making power. Read more about Landesa's work in Burkina Faso

Women from Rwanda participating in community land rights assessmentRwanda
Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa and this density and scarcity of arable land played a large role in the genocide and recurring conflicts the country has experienced. Currently our work is focused on ensuring that women's land rights are recognized and respected as the Government of Rwanda is implementing a nationwide program which will - for the first time - legally demarcate and clarify ownership for a total of 11 million parcels (Rwanda's population is about 11 million). Click here to read more.

China

Forest Tenure Workshop in Nepal
Landesa senior attorney, Li Ping, was invited by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) to participate in a two-day tenure analysis workshop in Katmandu, Nepal. Forest tenure experts from six countries in Asia participated in this workshop. Topics included establishing standards to interpret data and present findings to the research community and policymakers. Li Ping's presentation focused on the statutory and customary forest tenure systems and related reforms in China.

Briefings on 2010 17-Province Survey in Hong Kong and US
Landesa's findings from its survey of land rights in rural China continue to garner attention. Landesa founder Roy Prosterman and our China country director Gao Yu recently conducted briefings in Hong Kong with an audience of journalists, academics and financial sector executives. Our findings generated interest for further briefings as the implications for Chinese agriculture and land rights have an effect on global food prices and international corporate investment in China.  Prosterman and Keliang Zhu, one of our land tenure attorneys, will conduct briefings with the CATO Institute in Washington, D.C., then at the Asia Society and the Global Network for Public Interest in Law in New York.

From Our Field Focus Blog  

 

Takeaways from the World Bank Conference on Land & Poverty

By Darryl Vhugen - April 29, 2011 Read More 

 

How Does an Extra Line on a Piece of Paper Help Change the World?

By Gracykutty Middey - April 4, 2011 Read More 


Landesa in the News & Online

 

Bloomberg | China Crops in Short Supply as Fewer Farms Spur Food Prices

Landesa's survey of rural China continues to be cited for its findings of a rise in farmland acquisitions, which are leading to food price increases.

TrustLaw.org | Barriers to Land Rights for Women

Ren�e Giovarelli, Executive Director of the Landesa Center for Women's Land Rights, writes her second post in her monthly series, The Word on Women.

Events & Staff Speaking Engagements

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