Tim Hanstad is President and CEO of the Rural Development Institute (RDI), an international nonprofit whose mission is to secure land rights for the world’s poorest people—the majority of whom are women. For over 40 years, RDI has worked in over 45 countries on reforms that have helped to secure land rights for more than 100 hundred million families. RDI has received numerous awards and distinctions, including having been twice a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, the World Food Prize and a finalist for the Hilton Humanitarian Prize. Hanstad has consulted with the World Bank, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, USAID and others, and has led workshops with government leaders, NGOs and scholars on land tenure security and rural development. He has garnered awards and accolades from world leaders, policymakers and governments for his expertise in field research, training and program implementation devoted to expanding land access, improving tenure security, and advocating for women’s secure property rights in developing and transitional economies. In his two decades with RDI, Hanstad has worked in over 14 countries and recently returned from his second two-year post in India, where he helped launch RDI’s successful “micro-land ownership” initiative. Like the idea that catalyzed the micro-lending movement, micro-land ownership provides the foundation for getting assets into the hands of the poorest to foster self-sufficiency. Hanstad and RDI were recently highlighted at the Clinton Global Initiative for RDI’s new Global Center for Women’s Land Rights, which will create a platform to advocate for laws that provide secure property rights for women and girls and to raise awareness about women’s role at the strategic center of poverty reduction and food security. Hanstad teaches at the University of Washington School of Law, where he co-directs a graduate program in Law of Sustainable International Development, and has authored numerous publications including his most recent book, “One Billion Rising: Law, Land, and the Alleviation of Global Poverty,” with a preface by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. He is a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur, a member of the Bretton Woods Committee and a member of the Global Washington Policy Panel. Hanstad lives in Seattle with his wife Chitra and four children.
