What is the best predicator for rural poverty?

1. What is the best predicator for rural poverty?

2. Landless.

3. Securing land rights for the world’s poorest

4. Land to Tillers: Issues and Challenges in Securing Land Rights for Farmers in China Zhu Keliang Staff Attorney & China Program Director keliangz@rdiland.org Rural Development Institute October 2009

5. Land is a primary source of income, security, and status for the world’s rural poor.

6. What Secure Land Rights Mean to the Rural Poor: • INCOME • Long-term investments in land that lead to greater productivity and higher output. • SECURITY • Confidence in the security of the well-being of the families. • STATUS • Broad-based property ownership leads to social equity and civic participation.

7. Basic Facts About Rural China • Population: 800 million • Average family size: 4.6 people • Average farm size: 1.7 acre • Average per capita income: US $700

8. Agricultural Regions & Cultivation Intensity

9. Population Intensity

10. Rural China Lag the Cities Badly Rural-urban per capita income gap after 30 years’ reform: 5

11. Rural China Lag the Cities Badly • Rural life expectancy is now 12 years shorter than in the large cities. • The rate of rural middle-school graduates continuing to high school is only 7% (national average 51%). • 60,000 cases of “massive social unrest”, the great majority in the countryside, in 2006 alone. 5

12. Land Rights in Rural China • Collectives (village communities) are the legal owners of all rural land. • Within each collective, all farmland is physically divided and allocated to farm families for individual farming. • In regard to the allocated farmland, individual farm families enjoy “use rights” for a term of 30 years (started in mid- to late- 1990s). 5

13. Four Major Problems Leading to Insecure Land Rights • 1. Ongoing land readjustments (generally prohibited by law, but still ongoing in many places in practice) • 2. Compulsory land takings (Average compensation paid to land-losing farmers is only 1/15 of the market price of the land) • 3. Inadequate land documentation (only 10% of families have good documentation for land rights) • 4. What happens after 30 years? 5

14. 5

15. RDI’s Work in China • 1. Fieldwork and research • Nationwide sample surveys • Rapid rural appraisals and interviews 5

16. RDI’s Work in China • 2. Advising the central government • Central policies, laws and initiatives • RDI was engaged in China since 1987, and enjoys a close working relationship with the multiple central agencies and institutions 5

17. RDI’s Work in China • 3. Implementation on the ground • Legal aid & education centers in southern China • Land registration pilot programs 5

18. RDI’s Work Elsewhere • India • India has the greatest concentration of rural households that are totally landless — 60 million households. Another 250 million rural residents live in households that own less than 0.2 hectares of land. • Micro-land-ownership for landless poor. 5

19. RDI’s Work Elsewhere • Sub-Sahara Africa • Rwanda, Angola, Uganda. • Post-conflict land reforms: land distribution and “titling”. 5

20. RDI’s Work Elsewhere • Women’s land rights • Women provide 70% of the world’s agricultural labor, yet they own less than 5% of the world’s land. • Assets and Income in the hands of women results in better nutrition and welfare for the household than when in the hands of men. • Women’s property rights increase women’s status within the household and community. 5

21. 5

22. Difficulties of Charitable Giving in China • Government plays a dominant role, which results in little accountability • (80% of the￥76 billion donations made for Sichuan earthquake victims went directly to government’s bank accounts, with little oversight or transparency) • Domestic NGOs and non-profits lack legal status and independence. • Current legal rules do not encourage charitable giving.

23. RDI’s Approach in China • In terms of program work, RDI is leveraging its close relationship with the central government to develop local NGO capacity on the ground. • Little fund-raising in mainland, but is active in Hong Kong. (Most funding sources are still from the U.S.)

25. Securing Land Rights for the World’s Poorest Headquarters: Seattle, Washington, USA Field Offices: China – Beijing, Nanning India – Bangalore, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar Russia – Vladimir www.rdiland.org