One Billion Rising: Law, Land and the Alleviation of Global Poverty (Law, Governance, and Development) - Softcover

9789087280642: One Billion Rising: Law, Land and the Alleviation of Global Poverty (Law, Governance, and Development)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9087280645 ISBN 13: 9789087280642

Publisher: Leiden University Press, 2009

In an age fueled by globalization and focused on the struggling citizens of the urban metropolis, it might come as a surprise to learn that most of the world’s 1.4 billion poorest people are still rural. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these populations lack ownership of—and rights to—the land that forms their principal source of livelihood. Although land reform and related legal work have transformed the lives of millions of families by providing secure land rights, not all such efforts have succeeded. That mix of success and failure has been a big part of the reason that, in recent years, the conventional wisdom concerning law and land tenure reform—what is needed, what is possible, and how such reform contributes to pro-poor development—has changed, sometimes in striking ways. In this timely and important volume, lawyers from the Rural Development Institute and the University of Washington’s School of Law in Seattle use four decades worth of research on the results of land tenure reform efforts around the world in order to address how we might better meet the struggles to understand and change the plight of the rural poor.

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About the Author:

Roy L. Prosterman is founder and chairman emeritus of the Rural Development Institute (RDI) in Seattle, Washington and professor emeritus at the University of Washington s School of Law. Tim Hanstad is chief executive officer and president of RDI, and affiliate associate professor of law at the University of Washington s School of Law. Robert Mitchell is program chair and senior land tenure expert at RDI, where he currently directs RDI's India Program and affiliate assistant professor of law at the University of Washington s School of Law."

Review:

"In a world in which we are constantly confronted with equity and efficiency trade-offs, land reform is one of those rare instances of a policy which simultaneously promotes both. . . . This book puts the issue back onto the agenda, . . . providing nuanced arguments and detailed evidence."

(Joseph E. Stiglitz, from the Preface)

"For decades, Roy Prosterman and his colleagues at the Rural Development Institute have worked to address a root cause of global poverty—the absence of enforceable and secure rights to land. This book, based on many years of field experience, demonstrates the leveraged power of the law as a tool for social and economic progress."

(Bill Gates, Sr., Co-Founder, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)

"Insecure land rights originate in structures that systemically divide rich from poor, powerful from powerless. Secure rights have the potential to change those structures, providing hope and status to countless numbers of the world's poorest. I hope this book and topics it explores will reach ever widening audiences, from policy makers to concerned citizens, for years to come."

(Mary Robinson, President, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, Former President of Ireland, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights)

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