Keeping the promise: expanding and strengthening community land and forest governance for a sustainable future, Liberia 

Project Overview  

Ownership of customary lands in Liberia has been in dispute over the years. Land ownership has been a major source of contention between the Government of Liberia and local communities as well as between communities and multinationals. Local communities and their civil society allies have persistently challenged government claims of ownership of land that is neither private nor titled to individuals or families, and resisted allocation of those lands to extractive industries like palm oil companies. 

The enactment of the Land Rights Policy in 2013 and the Land Rights Act in 2018 have clarified the situation and provided a pathway for local communities to secure their ownership and control over their customary lands. Building on this opportunity, the project aims to increase land area under collective community ownership and improve land and forest governance in communities that have formalised their customary collective land rights by resolving land conflicts, promoting gender inclusion and equality, and promoting sustainable land investment.  

The project will support 24 communities that have completed the first stages of the Customary Land Formalisation (CLF) process to complete confirmatory surveys and acquire collective titles to their land, the final stages of the CLF process. It will also support 15 additional communities complete the first stage of CLF.  

Upon its completion the project will have made advances in clarifying, securing and strengthening the collective land and forest tenure rights of the 39 project communities and increased the total land area under collective community ownership and control in Liberia.