I am convinced that the best way to promote development and fight against poverty is by leveling the ground to allow individuals to make use of their talents and efforts so they are able to look for themselves. History of human evolution is about individuals and communities cooperating to create businesses and foster productivity. My work at the Instituto Libertad y Democracia consist in promoting institutional reforms in property and business rights that allow citizens to be included in the market economy and thus pull themselves out of poverty and prosper.
Marketplaces all over the developing world where people organize themselves to make a living: you can find that below the apparent chaos, if you spend enough time to understand what is going on, there are very clear rules by which people allocate the space, make contracts, provide security. There are always workshops where you can see how entrepreneurs (many times extended families) organize themselves and divide labor to be more productive. Of course all this is done without the protection of the law -and most of times against hostility of government officials-. However, people is not waiting for the government or an altruist westerner to solve their problems. They just apply their ingenuity and talent to make their livings.
Citizens -specially the poor- feeling confident about their land rights, feeling protected by the Rule of Law, clearly understanding their rights over land and assets and able to enforce them against governments and the powerful.
Victor Endo is a Land Administration specialist with more than 15 years of experience on legal and institutional aspects related to land formalization, real estate registration, and the overall processes of land governance. He is a Managing Director at the Instituto Libertad y Democracia, a think tank based in Lima, Peru. He lectures property law at the Pontificia universidad Catolica.
