Rural Development Institute Selects APCO
Washington, D.C. (June 19, 2006) — The Rural Development Institute (RDI), which works on behalf on the world’s rural poor, today selected APCO Worldwide (APCO) to be its global communication partner, announced Neal Cohen, chief executive officer of APCO’s North America region.
RDI, which selected APCO after a competitive process, is a nonprofit law, research and policy center working to obtain land rights and increase economic opportunity for the world’s rural poor.
“We chose APCO as our communication partner because of its sophisticated understanding of global public policy, the ability of its international offices to work together seamlessly across cultures, and its proven capability to conduct integrated public policy and communication campaigns on local and international fronts,” said Tim Hanstad, RDI’s president and chief executive officer. “APCO offers us broad expertise in the areas of government relations, international development, stakeholder and grassroots mobilization, public policy and rule of law.”
“Throughout its 38-year history, RDI has been a pioneer of strategies and opportunities to use land property rights as a key means to address the deep poverty that affects more than one billion rural people around the globe,” Hanstad said. “Now is the time to dramatically raise the visibility within the international development community of how owning even very small plots of land can alleviate global poverty.”
APCO’s primary focus will be to raise awareness about RDI’s Global Homestead Program. The program’s goal is to increase understanding and acceptance of how ownership of very small plots of land, where landless families can build a home and cultivate small gardens for sustenance, is an effective method to alleviate poverty.
“APCO is excited to work with RDI to help shift global thinking regarding land reform and poverty alleviation,” said Maggie Brown, vice president and managing director of APCO’s Seattle office.
The project will be managed out of APCO’s Seattle office, and will include staff from offices around the world, including Washington, D.C., Indonesia, the United Kingdom, China and India.
About RDI
With a home office in Seattle, RDI has a staff of 30 with field offices in Beijing, China; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Delhi and Bangalore, India. RDI was founded in 1981 and is actively working in nine countries in Asia, the former Soviet Union, and on the African continent, with principal programs in China, India and Indonesia – three of the poorest and most populous countries in the world. RDI also carries out land-related consultancies for clients such as USAID, the World Bank, the United National Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Asian Development Bank. In February 2006, RDI Founder and Chairman Emeritus Roy Prosterman received the inaugural Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership for his work with RDI. For more information, please visit www.rdiland.org.
About APCO Worldwide
Founded in 1984, APCO Worldwide is an independently owned global communication consultancy with offices in major cities throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. APCO was named 2006 Agency of the Year by PR Week, 2005 European Consultancy of the Year by Public Affairs News and 2004 Public Affairs Agency of the Year by The Holmes Report. Clients include corporations, governments, industry associations and nonprofit organizations. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., APCO includes among its clients seven of the top 10 companies on Fortune’s Global 500. Core services include corporate, investor and internal communication; crisis management; issue management; government relations; litigation communication; media relations; coalition building; opinion research; market entry; corporate responsibility and online communication. APCO is a majority women-owned business. For more information, please visit www.apcoworldwide.com.
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Contact:
Megan Carpenter
APCO Worldwide
+202-659-7913
mcarpenter@apcoworldwide.com