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