One Billion Rising: Law, Land and the Alleviation of Global Poverty

by Roy L. Prosterman (Editor), Robert Mitchell (Editor), Timothy Hanstad (Editor)

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.

450 pages, Paperback

First published June 3, 2009

About the author

Roy L. Prosterman was Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Washington and the founder of the Rural Development Institute (RDI), which changed its name to Landesa in January 2011. He was also active in the fields of land reform, rural development, and foreign aid. He had provided advice and conducted research in more than 40 countries in Asia, the former Soviet Union, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Prosterman had received many awards and distinctions, the 2003 Gleitsman International Activist Award, a Schwab Foundation Outstanding Global Social Entrepreneur and more recently, the inaugural 2006 Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership where he was lauded as "Champion for the World's Poor". He had also been nominated for The World Food Prize, Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, and Alcan Prize for Sustainability. Prosterman was a frequent guest speaker and presenter at world forums on poverty alleviation and was a frequent published author in nonfiction and fiction.
Prosterman received his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Reviews

[Denise DeRocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-depth, cogent analysis of various methodologies in several "third world" countries for alleviating poverty by manipulating agricultural environments. Well worth reading.