MONROVIA–The Liberia Land Authority in collaboration with the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI) and Parley Liberia, will on February 25, 2021, kick-off a two-day national conference to share lessons learned from early efforts to implement the 2018 Land Rights Act.
The Customary Land Formalization National Learning and Experience Sharing Conference will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. February 25 and 26, at the Ministerial Complex in Congo Town. H. E. Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemayah, Sr. Minister of Foreign Affairs, will deliver the keynote address. Ms. Nonette Royo, Executive Direct of the Tenure Facility and representatives from the embassies of Sweden, United States of America and the European Union will deliver remarks.
After the passage of the Land Rights Act, SDI, FCI and Parley Liberia, a consortium of CSOs, launched the Protection of Customary Collective Community Land Rights in Liberia (P3CL) project, to mobilize 24 communities in eight of the 15 counties and support them to the implement the Land Rights Act. The P3CL project is funded by the Swedish-based International Land and Forest Tenure Facility.
Silas Siakor, the conference coordinator, said the goal of the two-day conference is to provide citizens and CSOs the opportunity to share their experiences and lessons learned from the implementation of the Land Rights Act and to determine how implementation of the law can be scaled up effectively and efficiently.
“Basically, we want to create a space for people from the communities and the NGO sector to come together to talk about how the implementation of the law is going,’’ Siakor said. “The understanding of the law is different from community to community. For example, the law says men and women should have equal access to land, but what the law mandates and what people are thinking on the ground are different, so we need to discuss these issues and find ways of dealing with them as we move forward, “ he added.