Solutions Panorama

Owning and
Cultivating Land as a
Path to Self-Reliance
Featuring:
Landesa; Government of India
Where:
India
Time Frame:
2000 – Present
DESCRIPTION
In rural India, an estimated 18 million families are both poor and landless. Millions
more lack secure legal rights to the land they currently occupy. State and Central
government leaders in India have worked with Landesa since 2000, to undertake
a series of programs to address land tenure insecurity and poverty.
Landesa and West Bengal’s Department of Women and Child Development and
Social Welfare, have undertaken The Girls Project—an initiative that teaches girls
about their rights to own and inherit land and provides intensive training to equip
girls with the skills needed to both advocate for their land rights and to use land
to create assets.
The Girls Project in West
Bengal has taught
organic gardening
skills to over 48,000
girls in more than 1,000
villages.
IMPACT
The Girls Project in West Bengal has taught organic gardening skills to over
48,000 girls in more than 1,000 villages and engaged hundreds of communities
in discussions about girls’ vulnerabilities and needs. The project is now being
scaled to reach 1.25 million girls.
Throughout India, Landesa has reached more than one million families.
Increasingly, leaders in India’s poorest states are recognizing that insecure land
tenure is a significant hurdle to development and stability. Among other results
of Landesa’s work with the Indian government, more than 680,000 families
are now landowners; the state governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
have implemented land leasing reforms to help the poor gain secure access to
land they can farm; and five states have launched homestead allocation pilot
programs with Landesa’s assistance.
Landesa in India;
landesa.org
About Landesa;
landesa.org
LEARN MORE
About The Girl Project;
landesa.org
Source: Accelerate Access to Resources — Land,
Clean Energy, Water, and Sanitation policy brief
93
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