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USAID Chief Tells Land Rights Actors to Support Rural Communities At Launch of US$10M Project

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Top: USAID Mission Director Jim Wright speaks at the launch of Land Management Activity on the second day of the National Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County on March 2, 2022. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa County – Jim Wright, the Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has urged players in the land sector to continue to support rural communities formalizing the right to their land.

Wright spoke on Wednesday when USAID launched the Land Management Activity (LMA), a US$10 million project whose aim is to support 100 customary communities to legalize their ancestral land.

“I urge all stakeholders in the land space to remain engaged and assist communities to harvest the benefits that come with secure land tenure rights,” Wright told over 165 delegates of the National Land Conference while launching the four-year scheme. “I also encourage communities to not only become deed holders but to also utilize those deeds to transform their lives and those of their children and grandchildren.”

Liberia’s Land Rights Act guarantees customary land ownership and women’s rights. Under the law, towns and villages must first identify themselves as a single landowning community, demarcate their boundaries with neighboring areas and create a governance body, among other things. After that, the Liberia Land Authority conducts a survey to confirm the community’s landmass and awards it a deed.

However, implementation of the law has been a challenge, with many communities across the country yet to begin or complete the legal requirements in the law.

Wright said the LMA, which replaces the Land Governance Support Activity that ended in 2020, will support the Land Authority to guide the communities as they go through the legal process to acquire their ancestral deeds.

“Securing customary land rights is critical to strengthening Liberia’s democracy, sustaining peace, promoting economic growth and the sustainable management of land and environmental resources, and empowering women, youth and marginalized populations,” he said.

Bloh Sayeh, Commissioner of the Land Authority, praised the United States for its support, citing historical ties dating as far back as the formation of Liberia in the 1820s.

ECODIT, an international nongovernmental organization, is working with Tetra Tech, another international NGO, and three Liberian civil society organizations to implement the LMA project. The organizations are the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), Rights and Rice Foundation (RRF) and Talking Drum Studio. It targets communities in Nimba, Lofa, Bong, Margibi, Grand Bassa and Montserrado.

ECODIT’s Chief of Party Kadidia Dienta told delegates at the conference that the LMA project would also support communities plan the use of their land, see to it women, youth and other marginalized groups participate in land governance and management, promote the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to resolve land conflicts.

Mrs. Dienta urged players in the land sector, including the NGOs implementing the project and the Land Authority, to work together.

“As the old motto goes, ‘With only one finger, it becomes difficult to lift a pebble.’  We have to join efforts, we need to collaborate, and consult with one another to advance the implementation process of Liberia’s new land policy,” she said.

“To ensure achievement of the vision and objectives of the new Land Policy, we have no choice but work together, support and complement each other’s interventions,” she added.  

Mrs. Dienta’s comments struck a chord with the land community. The project comes after months of a frosty relationship between actors in civil society and the Land Authority. A report last month found the agency issued 11 deeds to individuals in Nimba and a town in Bomi from tribal certificates in the absence of regulations. Campaigners, including authors of the report, called on the agency to recall those deeds in order to prevent land-grab. Atty. Adams Manobah, chairman of the Land Authority, refuted that criticism in an interview with the DayLight, saying the deeds had been issued as part of a “pilot.”

Nora Bowier of the SDI said the pair should not find it difficult to work together on the project and in the future, despite their issues. “We have been working together with the Liberia Land Authority on previous projects, so we already have a foundation,” Bowier said. “I think this project will make it stronger.”

The National Land Conference is being held under the theme: “Celebrating three years of the Land Rights Act.” It is the biggest event on land since the creation of the law. It started on Tuesday earlier this week and ended Thursday. 

Calls Made for Land Authority to Cancel Deeds It Awarded without Regulations

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Top: Renée Gibson, a member of the CSO Oil Palm Working Group, reads the group’s position at a side event at the opening of the Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa – The Civil Society Oil Palm Working Group (CSO-OPWG) and representative of communities affected by alleged land-grab have called on the government to nullify customary land deeds it has issued that arose from tribal certificates.

In a side event at the ongoing National Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, the group called on the Land Authority to halt its issuance of tribal certificates in order to “reverse elite land-grab” in the country.

A report published last month by the CSO Land Reform Working Group (CSO LRWG) found the Land Authority issued 11 deeds to individuals in Nimba and a community in Bomi from tribal certificates in the absence of regulations and without the participation of campaigners.

There have also been reports of current and former government officials, and influential businesspeople claiming community lands across the country. Dubbed by civil society organizations as “elite land-grab,” the practice has seen many communities their ancestral land.

“We, the community representatives from Grand Bassa, River Cess and Margibi, Bomi and Cape Mount issue this declaration to highlight some of the most critical issues that must be addressed in the implementation of the Land Rights Act and are priority discussions for the National Land Conference,” the group’s statement, read by Renée Gibson of the Rural Integration Center for Community Empowerment (RICCE), said.

Loretta Pope Kai, chairperson of the National Civil Society Council of Liberia calls on the government to halt its issuance of tribal certificates and nullify deeds already granted from the papers. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

“This important meeting needs to take stock of the challenges since the passage of the law in 2018,” the statement added.

Those remarks were first made by Loretta Pope Kai, chairperson of the Civil Society Council of Liberia, at the opening ceremony of the Land Conference inside of the Buchanan City Hall.  

Mrs. Pope Kai said the call to halt the granting of tribal certificates was in line with the law.

“This is key to halting and reversing land-grab,” she said.

The Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Land Authority Atty. Admas Manobah denied that the institution was wrong to sign deeds without guidelines and regulations. He said the Land Authority was conducting a trial on communities it had already given deeds.

 “We are piloting, just how the civil society organizations are piloting community self-identification, just how they are piloting governance—the CLDMC—just how they are piloting boundary harmonization,” Manobah told The DayLight in an interview before the start of the conference.  

Manobah also denied any wrongdoing for vetting tribal certificates without the awareness and participation of civil society, saying the law did not mandate that. “The validity of tribal certificates shall be determined by a rigid validation process involving the community conducted by the Liberia Land Authority,” according to the relevant provision of the law (Article 47).

“Does being [rigid] mean the civil society has to be part of it? I will say no. And there is no provision in the law that says the Land Authority cannot implement any provision of the law without civil society. “We have statutory responsibilities. No civil society [organization] has statutory responsibility. They have moral responsibility.”

Tribal certificates are arguably the most troublesome subject in Liberia’s land reform process. Chiefs and elders across Liberia had issued thousands of tribal certificates to individuals as a kind of title to lands in towns and villages. However, in many cases, the chiefs did not consult other members of the communities.  

To address this problem, the law requires tribal certificates to be legally processed into deeds with the involvement of full membership of communities—men, women and the youth—that own the lands for which the documents were issued. The Liberia Land Authority is yet to formulate regulations for the implementation of the law, including the vetting of the controversial documents.

Liberia made history in 2018 when it passed into law the Land Rights Act, a landmark for recognizing rural communities’ ancestral land rights and recognition of women’s land ownership. Held under the theme: “Celebrating three years of the Land Rights Act,” the conference is expected to review the progress made since the creation of the law, challenges in its implementation and meeting those challenges in the future. The event brought together 165 delegates and is expected to end on Thursday a resolution.

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