Schwab Fellow of the World Economic Forum Video 1 Video 2 The Innovation The Rural Development Institute (RDI) is an international non-profit organization that partners with governments and NGOs to help the rural poor in developing countries gain ownership of land, thus alleviating poverty on a massive scale. Based in Seattle, Washington, with offices in Beijing, Bangalore, Delhi, and Jakarta, RDI has been working for over 40 years, in over 40 countries, and has helped attain secure land rights for over 400 million people, providing a leveraged, sustainable and generational foundation for poverty alleviation. Background Most families in the developing world rely on agriculture for their survival, but only a minority enjoys secure rights to land. Empirical evidence and history show that once land is in the hands of the rural poor a progressive cycle of growth out of poverty, escape from under-nutrition, and reduction in violence can occur. Land rights encourage farmers to invest and increase their incomes, allowing them to bring their children out of the fields and into the classrooms, reducing urban migration, and enhancing political, economic and social stability. In 1966, Roy Prosterman left his Wall Street law career to devote himself to this social transformation. His initial work in Vietnam in the late 1960s led to legislation that provided land ownership to a million tenant farmer families in South Vietnam – a program that has since been instituted in all of Vietnam and has helped Vietnam become the second largest rice exporter in the world. Since that initial success RDI has gone on to work with governments representing some of the world’s largest populations of rural poor, including China, India and Sub-Saharan African nations, among others. Strategy RDI uses both field and desk research, relationship development and the rule of law to develop land-tenure reform recommendations for governments to help them design programs to alleviate rural poverty – especially focusing on gender and cultural factors. RDI enters countries at the request of governments or international agencies when opportunities for reform are ripe. RDI interacts with local farmers, including women, consults with government officials at various levels and then recommends enforceable and politically viable reforms. As an example, RDI has worked in China since 1987, and is the principal foreign adviser to the central government on laws which have now brought secure, 30-year land rights to over 80 million of that country’s 190 million farm families. In the former Soviet Republics, RDI has advanced reforms to "de-collectivize" and establish private ownership rights to farms. RDI has been working extensively in India, and has developed a new “micro-land ownership” program to provide ownership of small homestead plots to the landless, with special regard to land rights for women. Under the leadership of Tim Hanstad, now President and CEO, RDI has grown into a well-structured organization currently active in India, China, Indonesia, Russia (legal aid center), Pakistan, Rwanda, Uganda, and Angola. The Entrepreneur In 1966, Roy Prosterman he left his rising law career with one of the nation’s top law firms, Sullivan & Cromwell, for a teaching post at the University of Washington School of Law. Led by a passion for addressing global poverty, he has devoted his career to applying the law to build a better world. In 1966, Prosterman published an article ("How to Have a Revolution Without a Revolution") in which he proposed a program of democratic land reform to satisfy the grievances of the rural landless poor in developing countries. Prosterman’s idea caught the attention of US policy-makers who were seeking a political settlement to the conflict in Vietnam. He soon found himself in the middle of the Vietnam War, drafting legislation for a “land-to-the-tillers” program —carried out between 1970 and 1973 — which provided land ownership to one million tenant farmer families, which increased their rice production by 30%. Since then, Prosterman and his RDI associates have gone on to apply and develop variants of this peaceful approach to land reform, working in over 40 developing countries around the globe, and helping over 400 million people attain secure land rights. Prosterman, now Chair Emeritus of RDI, is considered a leading expert on land reform and has authored numerous publications on land policy, hunger and agricultural development. Prosterman and RDI have received numerous awards and distinctions including the 2003 Gleitsman Foundation International Activist Award and the 2006 Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership. RDI has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the World Food Prize, and was a finalist for the Hilton Humanitarian Award and the Rio Tinto Alcan Prize for Sustainability. Prosterman currently serves as an Honorary Co-Chair of the World Justice Project and serves on the Board of Directors of the International Development Law Organization (IDLO). Prosterman is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. His forthcoming book (with Tim Hanstad and Robert Mitchell) is titled, “One Billion Rising: Land, Law and the Alleviation of Global Poverty” with a preface by Nobel Prize economist Joe Stiglitz. In 2004, Hanstad became RDI’s President & CEO of (RDI). Under Hanstad’s leadership, RDI has significantly expanded its reach, size and effectiveness, and has partnered with the World Bank, USAID, UNFAO, IMF and other international agencies. Hanstad has written numerous publications on the importance of land and the rule of law in poverty alleviation, and co-authored several notable books on the subject. He also teaches at the University of Washington, School of Law, where he co-directs a graduate program in Law of Sustainable International Development. Tim Hanstad is the President and Chief Executive Officer of RDI. He joined the organization in 1987.