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Land Authority Under Fire To Issue Community Deeds

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Top: The Chairman of the Land Authority Atty. Adams Manobah speaks to The DayLight on the margins of the Second Land Conference in Ganta, Nimba County. The DayLight/Harry Browne


By Esau J. Farr


GANTA, Nimba County – Delegates at the 2024 National Land Conference on Tuesday called on the Liberia Land Authority to speed up the issuance of deeds to customary communities.

Dozens of communities have completed the required process to obtain a customary land deed under the Land Rights Act but are yet to get their titles. Out of some 150 communities, only 36 have received their deeds since the creation of the law in 2018, according to available figures.

“There is a need to fast-track the formalization of customary land in Liberia, and grand their deeds after the Ganta conference,” said James Yarsiah, the chief organizer of the conference, the second in two years.

“Deeds are taking too long to process, the cost is too high and donors are getting concerned,” Yarsiah added.  

The conference seeks to review the implementation of the Land Rights Act, which is hailed worldwide but has faced enforcement challenges. The Land Rights Act guarantees customary landownership but requires rural communities to complete a legal process.

Dozens of communities have completed the process but LLA has yet to conduct an official survey to confirm their land areas and present their deeds.

Last year a group of CSOs accused the Land Authority of delaying communities whose processes are funded by CSOs and speeding up those supported by the regulator. That point echoed at the event before hundreds of conference delegates.

“The issuance of titles should not be restricted to few communities,” said Loretta Pope-Kai, the executive director of the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI).

FCI implements a project funded by the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility, an NGO based in Sweden. That project seeks customary deeds for 24 communities in seven counties, some awaiting deeds.

Representative Nyahn Flomo urges the Land Authority to rally the Liberian government for funding to support its community land deed processes. The DayLight/Harry Browne

“It is now time that the Liberia LLA exercises its mandate by issuing deeds to communities that are ready or have gone through the customary land formalization processes,” added Mrs. Pope-Kai.

In an interview with The DayLight, the Chairman of the Land Authority Adams Manobah said the regulator was cash-strapped to conduct surveys. Manobah said the government had not provided the regulator funding for customary land activities

“If the government does not make it a priority to fund the implementation of the Land Rights [Act], very soon the donors may withdraw from the field,” Manobah told The DayLight on the margins of the conference.

But Manobah’s comments do not reflect the whole picture. Even though the Liberian government has not funded customary-deed activities, international NGOs and foreign governments have.

The Tenure Facility project allots US$280,000 to the Land Authority over a three-year period.

The Land Management Activity, a five-year USAID project, supports the Land Authority’s surveys and deeding exercises.

Representative of Nimba County District #2 Nyahn Fomo called on the regulator to change its approach to mobilizing resources from the government. Flomo, a former land rights campaigner, urged the regulator to rally the support of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and the House of Representatives.  

He said the Land Authority was “crawling” in meeting timebound provisions of the law.

‘I am Happy’: Widow Celebrates Community Land Rights

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Top: Theresa Wleh, Chairlady of the Diyenkpo community sitting with a smile and children in the back. The Daylight/Matenneh Keita


By Emmanuel Sherman


DIYENKPO, Sinoe County – Theresa Wleh lives with her four children in the home of her late husband. Not just that house, Wleh farms on the plot of her late husband’s farmland, and she is fully recognized by her in-laws.

“I am happy,” Wleh tells The DayLight in an interview in Diyenkpo, a Sinoe town on the border with Grand Kru. It is the headquarters of the Lower Bokon Clan located in the Jaedae District.

“The reason that I am happy is since [my husband died], I am still sitting down here. When you want to move me, my kids are here,” Wleh adds.  

Wleh knows that things have not always been that way. Under a decade ago, women had no right to own community land or participate in ancestral land matters.  Generations of ill-fated customs and traditions discriminated against womenfolk, often leaving them to their male relatives’ mercy. On the other hand, powerful chiefs and elders, who were the custodians of lands, decided on matters without women’s consent.

All that changed in 2018 when Liberia created the Land Rights Act, which granted women customary land ownership. The new law also mandates women’s participation in community land governance.  

“I am happy for the government of Liberia to give women the right to own their land and have their deed. The land deed is important to us mothers and our children because when we leave tomorrow…, it is for your child or children,” Wleh says.

‘I used to feel bad’

Together with women’s landownership, the new law recognizes community land rights, based on local customs and folkways. It is the main highlight of the law, turning around decades of marginalization of rural people.  

While communities own ancestral lands by law, they should go through legal requirements to get a deed. Lower Bokon is at the boundary-harmonization stage of those requirements, having identified as a landowning clan, created a land body and mapped its assumed 7,283-hectare landmass. Several communities have obtained customary deeds, including Zolowee, Gbassa and Zor-Yolowee in Nimba.

But Lower Bokon has to resolve a boundary dispute with Neeklakpo, a town in Grand Kru, for the Land Authority to present its deed.

An elevated view of the Lower Bokon Clan, which covers an assumed 7,283 hectares of land in Sinoe’s Jaedae District. The DayLight/Derick Snyder

The Land Authority is working with other government agencies to resolve the dispute, according to Dr. Mahmoud Solomon, the Acting Commissioner for Land Administration. Solomon said the regulator was comparing data from those agencies, including the National Legislature, to determine the border points.

“We will soon resume to have it resolved amicably,” Solomon says in an interview at his Ashmun Street office. Bokon is one of the dozens of communities whose lands the Land Authority is formalizing as part of a US$3.45 million project funded by the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility in Sweden.

Wleh cannot wait for the disagreement to be solved. She wants to witness the resolution as it is in the interest of the community. But she does not allow the impasse to spoil her party.

“I am happy for us to reach this level. During our forefathers’ time, they were blind to the system. I used to feel bad when people came to use the land. At the time we never knew anything,” Wleh recalls. “Whatever they wanted to do was what they would do here.

“If we have our land deed, it will be good for us. Nobody will come and say, ‘This place is mine.’ As long as I have my deed and you are coming on my land, there will be an agreement between us,” she says.   

Wleh might be a bit cocky but her comments are not unfounded.

Lower Bokon is situated in a mining region, with little or no benefits to affected communities. Hummingbird, a British company, has operated there since 2019, according to official records. The records show that the Ministry of Mines and Energy has awarded 127 licenses in the region since 2013, predominantly for small-scale mining. Of that number 17 are active licenses.

Children fetch water at a hand pump in Diyenkpo, the headquarters of the Lower Bokon Clan in Jaedae District, Sinoe County. The Daylight/ Matenneh Keita

Despite these activities, the clan lacks a lot of necessities for its estimated 5,000 people. It lacks clinics, paved roads, and adequate water sources. Wleh and other Diyenkpo residents go to Karquekpo, the largest town in the region, for medication. The miners do not pay the clan anything.

The Land Rights Act empowers communities to buck that trend. With a deed, locals can enter into agreements with companies as parties to the investment, not just affected communities. They have the right to consent to or reject investment proposals.

“The kids we are having now, we want them to go to school so, that tomorrow we will benefit from them,” Wleh says. “When you come into our community and we tell you this is what we want and you cannot deliver, pack up your bag and leave.”  

Bassa Clan Begins Final Stage to Get Land Deed

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Top: A drone shot of Compound Number Two in Marblee Clan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue


By Esau Farr


COMPOUND NUMBER TWO, Grand Bassa County – Between 2019 and last year, Marblee Clan completed most of the steps in legalizing its customary land ownership, failing to harmonize boundaries with its neighbors.

Now, it has an opportunity to solve that problem and receive a deed following the launch of a new project over the weekend. The “Keeping the Promise” project targets Marblee and 38 other communities across eight counties. Parley Liberia, a Bong County-based NGO, Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), and the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI) will assist the communities. The International Land and Forest Tenure Facility provided US$3.56 million for the three-year project.  

“We want you to get your land deed,” Dr. Raymond Samndong, Tenure Facility’s lead campaigner for Liberia, told a short ceremony in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa County. “If you don’t have land, you don’t have an identity.”  

“Communities need their deeds and that is the focus of this project,” said Gregory Kitt of Parley Liberia, the NGO directing the project.

Marblee Clan stopped at the boundary harmonization stage over disputes with Karblee and Gogowein, its western and eastern neighbors, respectively. Its dispute with Karblee Clan is over an area covering 2, 057 hectares of land, while the disputed land with  Gogowein spans 264 hectares.  

Under the Land Rights Act, communities must cut their boundaries with their neighbors. After that, the law requires the Liberia Land Authority (LLA) to conduct an official survey to grant their deeds.   

Alexander Cole, FCI’s land rights campaigner, told The DayLight the NGO was talking to the Liberia Land Authority to assist in resolving Marblee’s land disputes. Cole said they would train members of the clan’s governance body known as the community land development and management committee (CLDMC).

Bendu Darsure, a women representative of the community stated that “The coming of the project into our community has made some of us know our rights to properties, especially land.”

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