Land Governance

Sierra Leone’s Land Size

 Sierra Leone is a small West African country, lying on the extreme west coast of Africa. The country has an estimated land size of 71,620 km2 (27,653 sq miles), with water area covering 120 km2 (46 sq mi). This land mass is further estimated at 7.2 million hectares.

Land Governance System

Sierra Leone’s land governance context can be better discussed under two theories – the theory of realism and the theory of jury. By the latter, the laws say land is governed under two systems – a freehold system in the capital, Freetown and the immediate environs and a customary system in the provinces – this covers the vast area of Sierra Leone’s geography, accounting for over 99” of the country’s total land mass. However, the earlier theory of truth suggests that both systems exist across the country. In fact, there is no firm, fully established boundary between the two systems. Freetown, settlements along the coast and newly urbanised locations in the extreme eastern part of the capital, have gradually moved from their customary practices to the freehold system.

Secondly, against the original intention of separating the two areas (which was to prevent the elite settlers in the British colony area from invading the territory of the protectorate), the Customary Land Rights Act has now removed this discrimination and any other form of discrimination that had debarred one set of Sierra Leoneans from acquiring land in other parts of the country. Thus, under the current system, people have been able to lay private ownership over land in many places, especially in the developed urban cities across the country. This new trend has made it difficult to present any clear system under which Sierra Leone’s land is currently governed.

Reform

Sierra Leone’s land context has evolved quite rapidly since the government initiated a reform effort following the decade-long civil war. This effort started, first, by acknowledging the significant role land plays in the socioeconomic well-being, political stability and cultural lives of people. From the growing need for land in the capital city to the pressure that land-based investment brings to rural communities, land governance has become one of the key topics of governance.

Following several efforts to get the policies right, the VGGT provided a blueprint, introduced to Sierra Leone in 2014, which enabled the country to review its land policy to adopt and launch the 2015 National Land Policy – a new pathway that provided a comprehensive policy guidance for an inclusive, people-centred land governance trajectory. The policy implementation went on through 2018 when discussions started to legislate new laws. By the start of 2020, two bills were already at hand and were being discussed. Two years later, in August 2022, two laws were introduced in Parliament and subsequently became laws. Thus, Sierra Leone now has two laws that have provided sufficient clarity on so e of the complex and contentious land governance issues. These laws are the Customary Land Rights Act and the National Land Commission Act. Five more laws are in the pipeline, expecting to be completed by the first half of 2026.

The New Change with the new laws

The National Land Commission Act is an institutional law that has established the National Land Commission. The Commission has the authority to lead the implementation of laws and policies formulated by the Ministry of Lands and the laws legislated by the Parliament. The structure of the National Land Commission has a national secretariat with the Commissioner General and a deputy as heads. The law provides that either the Commissioner General or the deputy should be a female. The national secretariat also has several departments that are headed by commissioners. At decentralized level, the law proposes that every district has a District Land Commission. The Commissioner has now established the district commissions in five out of Sierra Leone’s fourteen rural districts.  Below the district level, every chiefdom should have a chiefdom land committee and in every village, a Village-Area Land Committee. Through support from the World Bank and with other complementary support from donor organisations, these committees have now been established in the four regional headquarters districts.

The second law is the Customary Land Rights Act. This law has replaced the old colonial Protectorate Land Ordinance. In the new law, all forms of discrimination have been removed. This means that every Sierra Leonean now has the right to acquire land in any part of the country. The law has also guaranteed equal rights to both men and women to own land, use land, benefit from land, bequeath land or exercise any right over family and community land, once they both have the original right to do so. The law has also reviewed the initial custodian grip that the council of chiefs had over customary land. A supervisory role has now been given to Chiefdom Land Committees to supervise all family and community lads in their respective territories. The law has further criminalised all economic activities in ecologically sensitive areas except with the approval of the rightful designated government ministry, department and agency. Further in the law, there is now a very clear approach to acquiring customary land for private investment, and that process must respect the international standard of Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).  For instance, before a family or community’s land can be taken for investment, a minim of 60% members of that community or family must first grant their FPIC. There must be minutes of a meeting held with the family and the consent of those who agreed must be written and signed by them. The law also provides that all of the land leases of land owners must be given to them, as opposed to the previous mining law that used to knife 50% away. (Note: The new mining law legislated in 2022 still provides that 30% of land lease is distributed (10% each) to chiefdom councils, district councils and the Member of Parliament covering the area. Ensuring that the two laws agree has been one of the difficulties Sierra Leone has had in implementing the new laws to their fullest.

Implementation

The implementation effort is going on with a strong collaborative effort. The effort is largely coordinated under the new Sierra Leone Land Administration Project (SLLAP), but complemented by several other support coming in through CSOs and NGOs.

First, the Commission’s national secretariat has a Commissioner General, a deputy Commissioner General and five other commissioners – Commissioners of Land Registration, Cadastral Mapping, Corporate Communication and Advocacy, M&E and Legal Affairs. Efforts are now in place to establish a department of administration.

In the five districts where the commissioner has established presence, unfortunately, each district only has a District Land Commissioner and a staff responsible for alternative grievance dispute resolution. The Commission is yet to recruit other staff of the district commissions. But the SLLAP is also actively moving to construct the Commission’s national secretariat and for district secretariats in the four regional districts (Bo, Bombali, Kenema and Port-Loko).

Multi-stakeholder Engagement in Sierra Leone

Multi-actor partnership is also thriving in Sierra Leone. In fact, records have it that the controversial reform effort would have been stalled forever if the leaders had not tolerated active multi-stakeholder dialogue. There were opposition to the reform effort form several quarter. The traditional authorities had condemned the reform effort in its entirety, forcing the government to withdraw the first version of the bill that was already in Parliament for debate. This state could have marked the end of the road. However, following a very meaningful dialogue and roundtable engagement with the paramount chiefs, which were facilitated by the Minister of Lands, Housing and Country Planning, consensus was reached among the council or paramount chiefs, CSOs and the pirate sector. In the end, all of these stakeholders had felt satisfied to a certain extent and the bills were greenlit to be re-introduced to the parliament.

As it stands, multi-stakeholder engagement is happing actively at two levels – central government level in Freetown and decentralized level in nine districts. At the central level, there is a Technical Working Group (TWG) facilitated by a secretariat at the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Country Planning. This TWG was initially established to support the implementation of the VGGT. Following the success with the VGGT implementation – which guided the 2015 National Land Policy and subsequently the two laws, the focus of the TWG was expanded to now support inclusive natural resource governance  and to particularly support the implementation of the Sierra Leone Land Administration Project. This decision was reached at an annual retreat in 2022.

Below the TWG are separate District Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (DMSPs). These are more inclusive district level MSPs that, unlike the TWG, are currently facilitated by CSOs. The DMSP idea was initiated by Land for Life in 2020 in four districts (Pujehun, Kenema, Port-Loko and Tonkolili) through support from the German Welthhungerhilfe (WHH). Later in 2023, Land for Life received support from the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) to expand the DMSP effort to three additional districts (Bo, Bombali and Kambia). FAO also collaborate with the GIZ’s Partnership 2030 to provide training for the DMSP and other technical backstopping support. The eighth DMSP was later established in Kono district, with financial support from a US based NGO, RESOLVE. The ninth DMSP has recently been established in Karene district by a partner CSO, Green Scenery with support from Christian Aid. 

As these DMSPs have become active and relevant in their respective districts, the current discussion among land sector stakeholders is to anchor their activities to the District Land Commissions so that they are directly coordinated under the umbrella National Land Commission. This is being done to fulfil the ambition of establishing a fully function, well-coordinated land administration machinery in Sierra Leone through and effective National Land Commission.

Further to this aim, efforts are also in place to establish a more inclusive national level MSP. This MSP will be facilitated by the National land Commission and will review the engagement theme of the Technical Working Group, which will henceforth become a second layer of multi-stakeholder engagement where more technical discussions will be facilitated. The National MSP will be more inclusive and discussions shall focus on social, political and cultural issues relating to land rights.