A recent New York Times article features a conversation with Roy Prosterman, founder of Landesa, a Seattle, Washington-based NGO and partner in USAID Land Tenure projects in Kenya, Liberia and other locations. Prosterman founded Landesa, formerly the Rural Development Institute, in 1966 and has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. To date, Landesa has worked with local governments in over 50 countries to develop laws, policies and programs that provide secure land rights for the world’s poorest people.
In the article, Prosterman highlights the importance of land tenure and states that in the coming decades the issue will play out “largely through a range of new approaches, which will encourage governments to become widely and actively involved in land rights for the poor.” He also states that new challenges, such as large-scale land acquisitions by governments and the private sector, will require new solutions to protect the land rights of the poor.