Landesa is awarded the LUI Che Woo Prize 2017 in the Welfare Betterment category, with the Specific Area of Focus on “Alleviation of Poverty”.

Landesa promotes the idea of “land to the tiller” through partnering with governments and civil society organisations in developing countries and using laws and policies as systemic tools to help the rural poor gain secure land rights.  To date, after 50 years of steadfast efforts, it has succeeded in securing land rights for more than 120 million of the world’s poorest families in over 50 countries through peaceful means.  For rural women and men, ownership of their land is the critical first step to achieving economic independence and escaping poverty. 

Landesa  is an international non-governmental organisation that fights poverty and provides opportunity and security for poor rural women, men, and communities through the power of land rights.  Throughout the developing world, insecure land rights are a foundational cause of extreme poverty, food insecurity, gender inequality, conflict, environmental destruction, and sluggish economic growth.  And more than one billion poor rural people around the world currently lack legal rights over the land on which they depend to survive.  Landesa partners with governments and civil society to help develop pro-poor and gender-sensitive laws, policies, and programs that strengthen land rights.  Landesa land rights experts work shoulder to shoulder with government officials, local leaders, and rural residents to develop scalable, practical, and innovative solutions to strengthen land rights and land tenure systems.

Landesa’s process combines policy guidance at the global, regional, and national levels with program implementation at the local level to put land rights into the hands of the people who need them most.  Landesa is committed to help achieve these outcomes through systemic change and an emphasis on gender equality. 

Founded in Seattle, Landesa has partnered with governments to help secure land rights for more than 120 million families in over 50 countries.  In 2015, Landesa was awarded the Hilton Humanitarian Prize, in recognition of Landesa’s extraordinary contributions to alleviating human suffering.  Landesa currently has active projects in India, Myanmar, China, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique.​