About Us
The Land Tenure Unit in the EGAT/Natural Resources Management Office in USAID commissioned this portal as a method to share knowledge through tools, documents and trainings on global land tenure and property rights issues.
Rights to land and property are fundamental to virtually every society. Secure land tenure and property rights (LTPR) are as essential to peace and stability as are rule of law, good governance, and sustainable, economic development. As USAID moves forward to address transformational development, it increasingly needs to predicate its efforts on land reform and security of property rights. Because property rights are so closely linked to development agendas across the globe, it is important to understand how these rights shift as economies move through the stages of economic growth and democratization (and, in some cases, from war to peace) and how these shifts require different property rights interventions.
Launched in the summer of 2009, the USAID Land Tenure and Property Rights Portal contains data and analysis that spans nearly a decade of research in both academia and in the field by USAID and several dozen partner organizations. For more information, please browse the documents on this portal.
USAID operating units and missions that require LTPR services related to programming should contact Dr. Gregory Myers or Timothy Fella.
Our Team
Gregory Myers
gmyers@usaid.gov
Dr. Myers is a Senior Advisor for USAID, where his portfolio includes managing the Agency's Land Tenure and Property Rights Unit. Much of his work focuses on conflict prone countries although the program he manages is global and addresses many of USAID’s strategic objectives, including food security, climate change and biodiversity conservation, women’s property rights, conflict mitigation and post-disaster recovery. He is also Chair of the FAO/CFS Working Group on Voluntary Guidelines for Land Tenure. Dr. Myers has worked on and published articles related to land tenure for more than 25 years and has worked in a number of countries including Mozambique, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Ethiopia, Liberia, East Timor, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, DRC, Haiti, Kenya, Ukraine and Kosovo. He is recognized as one the leading experts in his field.
Tim Fella
tfella@usaid.gov
Tim Fella is a land tenure and conflict specialist working with USAID in Washington DC. He provides technical assistance on tenure and property rights challenges as the relate to conflict over natural assets, governance and humanitarian crises. He has worked on the design and implementation of land tenure and property rights programs for more than five years in a variety of countries including Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Sri Lanka and Sudan. Prior to joining USAID in January 2010, Mr. Fella worked with the Property Rights and Land Policy team at the Millennium Challenge Corporation where he participated in the development and implementation of comprehensive land administration reform projects in Lesotho, Burkina Faso, and Liberia totaling over $88 million. He has a Master's degree from the University of Aalborg, Denmark in Social Sciences for International Development and has conducted research into the formalization of informal settlements in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and communal land tenure insecurity in Sri Lanka.
Karol Boudreaux
kboudreaux@usaid.gov
Karol Boudreaux joins USAID from George Mason University where she was Instructor at the GMU School of Law (previously Assistant Dean of the School) where she taught a seminar on Law and International Development and was a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at GMU. The focus of her research for the past six years has been institutional arrangements in sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on property and land tenure institutions, natural resource management, and varieties of entrepreneurship. She has conducted field research in 8 African countries and has published over 25 articles, policy papers, and book chapters as well as a monograph on property rights. Karol also served as a member of the Working Group on Property Rights of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor. Her JD is from the University of Virginia, where she concentrated on international law, and her BA is from Douglass College, Rutgers University.
Peter Giampaoli
pgiampaoli@usaid.gov
Peter Giampaoli is a land tenure and climate change specialist with USAID in Washington DC. He brings over 20 years of experience in South Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya on a range of natural resource, land policy and tenure issues. Previously he worked for the International Land Coalition Secretariat, based in Rome, Italy and served as a Peace Corps volunteer supporting forestry estension and park administration efforts in Uganda's Rwenzori Mountains National Park. Giampaoli has also worked with the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management. He holds a Master of Science degree in Forest Resources, focusing on policy issues affecting smallholder forest owners, from Oregon State University. When not in a desk chair, he enjoys outdoor activities such as biking and hiking.
