Check out if Landesa is in The Top 100 NGOs 2013 Edition!

Securing land rights for the rural poor.

Secured gains for over 100 million families.

The majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas where land rights are an immeasurable asset – providing income, security and status. Yet, half of these families live without access to land or a stake in the land they till. Landesa – formerly the Rural Development Institute – has a 40-year legacy of creative collaboration with governments to secure land rights for the rural poor. 

Over 600 million people in China and India and 226 million in sub-Saharan Africa live in rural poverty, a significant portion of whom are women farmers. Landesa specifically targets these groups to foster their economic growth and spark a positive ripple effect throughout entire families and communities. 

Landesa’s work has proven that a family can raise itself from poverty on a mere one-tenth of an acre. The organization has prioritised ‘micro-plots’ in rural India to target approximately 15 million landless families. With its ‘small is beautiful’ approach, Landesa found that micro-plots enabled families to grow nearly all of their fruits and vegetables while still being able to sustain livestock or a small enterprise. Landesa is convinced that the simple and scalable approach of ‘micro land owning’ has the potential to act as a catalyst to lift millions out of poverty.

(Photo © Deborah Espinosa)