South Vietnam (1967-1973)
Roy Prosterman developed a "land-to-the-tiller" program—carried out between 1970 and 1973—that gave land ownership to one million tenant farmer families. Although too late to halt the conflict, the program cut Viet Cong recruitment by 80 percent and increased agricultural productivity by 30 percent. Then-President Thieu said that if this program had been carried out in the 1950s, there never would have been a renewed conflict in South Vietnam. The success of these small family farms influenced the Hanoi government to break-up collective farms in the North two decades later—a reform that Prosterman and his colleagues were invited in to review and assess in 1993. Vietnam is now a net exporter of grain.
For more information about Vietnam’s land reform, contact Roy Prosterman at royp@rdiland.org.

Philippines (1970-1987)
Prosterman and colleagues persuaded the Marcos government to reverse a measure that would have resulted in the widespread eviction of tenant farmers. Instead, 200,000 tenant families eventually received land, over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, under the revised program. For more information, contact Roy Prosterman at royp@rdiland.org.

El Salvador (1980-1984)
RDI designed and helped the government carry out a land reform that provided land ownership to 50,000 tenant farm families. RDI also played an important educational role with the U.S. government, which helped to form conditions on U.S. aid to El Salvador. RDI’s work led to the U.S. government’s support for land reform in El Salvador, keeping it alive under extremely difficult conditions. Two prominent former U.S. Ambassadors have said that this reform probably kept El Salvador from falling to the communist rebels. Contact Roy Prosterman at royp@rdiland.org.

Moldova (1996-2000)
Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, this mostly agrarian and poor republic has achieved considerable success in land reform—privatizing and developing markets for its urban and agricultural land. During 1996-2000, RDI was on the frontlines of implementing this reform. Staff attorney Robert Mitchell was based in the capital of Chisinau, where he headed the legal team for a USAID-sponsored project to privatize land and develop land markets. The RDI-led legal team was responsible for helping to draft the laws, regulations, and administrative and technical procedures required to privatize agricultural land, provide land ownership titles to citizens, and establish a practical framework for private land transactions. By the conclusion of RDI’s engagement in 2000, Moldovan local governments had privatized 2.4 million land parcels and issued ownership titles to 590,000 former collective farm workers. All landowners could also freely engage in all modern land transactions. The project also established ten regional legal aid centers to assist thousands of impoverished landowners in resolving land disputes, including disputes with local officials. For more information about the Moldova program, contact Robert Mitchell at robertm@rdiland.org.

Georgia (1997 – 2004)
Over a seven-year period RDI provided periodic assistance to the Government of Georgia through two USAID land market development projects.  RDI’s focus areas were to: (1) develop policy ideas and related legislation to promote the privatization of farmland; and (2) improve laws relating to land registration and other key land-market topics.  RDI’s lawyers made important contributions to Georgia’s farmland privatization process, to the development of the legal framework governing private land ownership and markets in land, and to the improvement of the process of recognizing private rights to land through registration.  While Georgia still has more land reform work left to complete, and while the country’s economy remains troubled, one million of its citizens now own agricultural land, and land can be transferred more-or-less freely.

Strategic Opportunities

This recently created program was devoted to short, highly leveraged interventions—primarily to address land-poverty related civil conflict or crisis.

The stability-enhancing effect of providing land rights to the aggrieved rural poor has figured prominently RDI's work since its origins in South Vietnam in the late 1960's. Today there are several countries where land-based grievances affect large numbers of rural poor, and where such grievances are contributing to conflict and instability. This program is designed as a flexible response tool to quickly address urgent needs and opportunities, help resolve land-based grievances, and contribute to political stability.

Program engagements—whether they be in a particular country or pertinent to several situations—are being selected with particular attention given to whether there is a promising opportunity to address a civil conflict or world order problem, whether there exists sufficient political will and window of opportunity for change, and whether the work has the potential for influencing government or foreign aid donor policy.

Program activity thus far has consisted of the following.

Input on Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)
RDI established a working relationship with the House Committee on International Relations and was requested to provide input on the Committee Report for the MCA legislation, which commits substantial new resources to fight world poverty. As a result of that input, the Committee's report on the legislative history and intent of the MCA states, "the Committee believes that ownership by the poor of a plot of land, at least sufficient to erect basic shelter and have a garden producing food and income, is of fundamental importance for empowerment, livelihood, social stability, and the creation of wealth. Financing for acquisition of plots for such purposes could be on either a repayable or non-repayable basis." RDI language on the crucial subject of oversight mechanisms to monitor progress towards achieving the objectives of MCA assistance was also included in the report.

The bill establishing the MCA was enacted into law early this year.

Guidance to USAID on Land and Violent Conflict
RDI has also prepared a research paper commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on the connection between land issues and violent conflict. As a follow-on, RDI is preparing four additional papers for USAID as background to guide the agency's land-related interventions in both pre- and post-conflict situations.

Pakistan
Pakistan was recently selected as the first country for special attention under RDI's Strategic Opportunities program because it is:

•Poor—with a per-capita income of $450/year (even lower in rural areas);

•Unstable—with poverty worsening, land concentration increasing, and a significant number of militants gaining popular support; and

•Nuclear—with an unthinkable potential for destruction should an extremist group assume power.

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