Table Of Contentlaw, governance,
and development
research
one Billion
rising
law, land and the alleviation
of global poverty
edited by
roy l. prosterman
roBert mitchell
tim hanstad
with a preface by Joseph e. stiglitz
leiden university press
One Billion Rising
Law, Governance, and Development
The Leiden University Press series on Law, Governance, and
Development brings together an interdisciplinary body of work about
the formation and functioning of legal systems in developing
countries, and about interventions to strengthen them. The series aims
to engage academics, policy makers and practitioners at the national
and international level, thus attempting to stimulate legal reform for
good governance anddevelopment.
General Editors:
Jan Michiel Otto (Leiden University) and Benjamin van Rooij (Leiden
University)
Editorial Board:
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na´ım(Emory University)
Keebet vonBenda Beckman (Max Planck Institutefor Social
Anthropology)
John Bruce (Land and Development SolutionsInternational)
Jianfu Chen (La Trobe University)
Sally Engle Merry (New York University)
Julio Faundez (University of Warwick)
Linn Hammergren (World Bank)
Andrew Harding (University of Victoria)
FuHualing(HongKongUniversity)
Goran Hyden (University ofFlorida)
Martin Lau (SOAS, University of London)
Christian Lund (Roskilde University)
Barbara Oomen (Amsterdam Universityand Roosevelt Academy)
Veronica Taylor (University of Washington)
David Trubek (University ofWisconsin)
One Billion Rising
Law, Land and the Alleviation of Global Poverty
Edited by
Roy L. Prosterman
Robert Mitchell
and Tim Hanstad
with aPreface by JosephE. Stiglitz
Leiden University Press
Cover photo: ©2007Josh Fredman Photo
Cover design:Studio Jan de Boer,Amsterdam
Layout: The DocWorkers, Almere
ISBN 978 90 8728064 2
e-ISBN 978 90 4850833 4
NUR 820
© R.L. Prosterman, R. Mitchell, T. Hanstad / Leiden University Press,
2009
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright re-
served above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or in-
troduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the
authorof the book.
Contents
Acknowledgments 7
Preface
Joseph E. Stiglitz 9
1. Poverty,law and land tenurereform
Tim Hanstad,Roy L.Prosterman and Robert Mitchell 17
2. Tenancy reform
Roy L. Prosterman and Jennifer Brown 57
3. Redistributing land to agricultural laborers
Roy L. Prosterman 107
4. Micro-plots forthe rural poor
Robert Mitchell, Tim Hanstad and Robin Nielsen 153
5. Gender andlandtenure reform
Rene´e Giovarelli 195
6. Land tenurereformin India
Tim Hanstad and Robin Nielsen 235
7. Fromcollective to household tenure: China and elsewhere
Li Ping and Roy L.Prosterman 277
8. Formalization ofrightsto land
Robert Mitchell 333
9. Land rightslegal aid
Robert Mitchell 377
10. Concluding reflections
Roy L. Prosterman 413
Select bibliography 429
List of contributors 435
Index 437
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the generous support of the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, without which this book would not
have been possible.
The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support and contribu-
tions of Leonard J. Rolfes, Jr. and David Bledsoe, both former Senior
Attorneys of the Rural Development Institute, who helped shape the
book and contributed to much of the learning represented here. We
are grateful to Professor Jan Michiel Otto, Director of the Van Vollen-
hoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development at the Univer-
sity of Leiden School of Law, for suggesting that we write this book,
and to the students and faculty of the institute for reviewing an early
draft of the book and providing helpful recommendations. We also
wish to thank the many staff members of RDI who helped in assem-
bling and proofreading the book. We especially acknowledge the help
given by Gina Zanolli, Leah Shepard, Neal Kingsley, Katharine Bond
and CourtneyHudak.
Preface
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University
It is a great pleasure for me to write this preface for Roy Prosterman’s
landmark book on land tenure reform. – Roy and his colleagues at the
Rural Development Institute have been tilling this soil for four dec-
ades – long before the issue became fashionable.1 They have blended
first-rate scholarship with advocacy: an early, and often lonely, voice
recognizing the importance that access to land and security of land
tenure has in uplifting the lives of the poor in agrarian economies.
They have not only detailed these effects but also identified the me-
chanisms through which these benefits are realized. In most develop-
ing countries, most people depend for their livelihood on agriculture.
Land is thus an essential part of the means of production, but those at
the bottom typically have no land. Giving even small plots of land can
make enormous differences to their lives and the lives of their fa-
milies. Prosterman and his colleagues not only talk about the impor-
tance of land, they provide hard evidence.
But Roy and his colleagues are not Panglossian idealists. Their hard-
headedresearchwill be achallenge for many a warm-hearted reformer:
land reform is not easy. They carefully document the successes and the
failures, paying close attention to the differences in circumstances of
the different countries. Their conclusions are at the same time sober-
ing and heartening. The numerous failures are often cited by critics of
land reform. Prosterman and his colleagues conclude that govern-
ments should purchase land, without compulsion, paying market
prices; and given the tight budget constraints facing many developing
countries, this limits the scope. At the same time, they argue that
micro-plots can have very high productivity and make a great deal of
difference.Thatmeansthegovernmentmaynothavetopurchasehuge
amounts of land to make a big difference to large numbers of the poor
in these countries.
I have long been an advocate of land reform, and in the following
paragraphs, I want to explain why, provide some suggestions of how
governments can lower the costs of market-based land reform, and
show what can be done to increase the prospects of successful land re-
form. Finally, Prosterman and his colleagues argue for the importance
of enhanced security of tenure. There are good reasons for this. But in
Description: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
