Program Updates
Africa
Burkina FasoLandesa 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.
RwandaRwanda 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).
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China
Forest Tenure Workshop in NepalLandesa 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 USLandesa'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.