Sierra Leone – Reshaping community and indigenous land rights
When was the law passed?
August 2022
Key points
Unprecedentedly ambitious legislation passed in Sierra Leone which gives communities the right of Free, Prior and Informed Consent on all new development and projects on their land.
Legislation gives communities veto powers, redressing power imbalances between communities and corporations.
Legislation bans development in ecologically sensitive areas.
Legislation also provides equal land access for women and establishes land committees with minimum 30% female membership.
Legislation passed in a context with a history of land grabbing, and foreign business driven environmental degradation, pollution, and conflict between business and local communities.
Long-term impact of the legislation is yet unclear
Broad Context
Managing competing interests between the land rights of local communities and indigenous peoples vs. the rights of companies and investors to use those same lands for commercial ends is a long-standing global issue. Communities, often despite land ownership rights or due to more informal conceptions of land ownership, have regularly been on the receiving end of corporate land-grabs, which can lead to environmental pollution and forced relocation with little regard for culture, tradition and community.
Protecting the land rights of marginalised communities can have wide ranging benefits. Communities often rely on the land for food and are better custodians of the local environment than large corporates. Additionally, clearly defined and protected land ownership rights can be a gateway to accessing financial and social services, such as credit, loans, insurance and welfare. Protection also encourages local investment in the land, and in urban areas can be essential in accessing public utilities such as water, sanitation and electricity.
Gender is also a key issue in improving equal access to land rights. Women tend to own less land than men, and the land they do own tends to be of worse quality and with fewer legal assurances. Research shows that when women own land, they are more likely than men to spend income from the land on their children’s food and education.
As Barbara Codispoti argues for Tearfund, “Securing and protecting vulnerable people’s land rights is essential for bringing about a fair and prosperous society.”
Local Context
Sierra Leone has a history of conflict between local communities and foreign companies that have mined gold, titanium, and diamonds, and have cleared huge swathes of land for sugarcane and palm oil plantations in recent years, requiring extensive deforestation.
According to NGO Namati, at least 20% of Sierra Leone’s arable land is currently leased to foreign companies for agriculture, mining and other development ventures. Sonkita Conteh, Director of Namati Sierra Leone explains that “Negotiations between investors and the communities whose land they seek are fraught with deep power imbalances and are undermined by weak regulations”
According to Reuters, locals have complained of environmental damage, loss of livelihoods, and a lack of fair compensation for their land. The current system awards landowners an annual rent of $2.5 per acre.
What policy/legislation was passed to address this?
Two acts, The Customary Land Rights Act and the Land Commission Act, dictate that companies operating in Sierra Leone will have to obtain the Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of communities before they can begin industrial, mining or farming activities. Residents have the right to veto any project affecting it, and the government of Sierra Leone is obliged to help pay for any legal fees incurred by local communities in negotiations with companies and investors. This strengthens communities in dealings with foreign companies, helping to redress long-seated power imbalances.
The new legislation in Sierra Leone transfers power from intermediaries, such as government officials and community leaders, to people owning or directly using the land.
The law also makes huge strides for women’s land rights. Under the new legislation women should have equal land rights, without interference and discrimination. The legislation also creates committees tasked with managing communal lands and resolving disputes. The membership of these committees must be at least 30 percent female.
The law also has explicit environmental implications. On top of giving communities the right to veto projects, potentially on environmental grounds, the laws ban industrial development, including mining, timber, and agribusiness in old-growth forests and other ecologically sensitive areas.
Has this policy been successful?
Global Policy Community will continue to keep abreast with the implementation of this policy. It is too early to say, however, whether this policy has been a success in practice, due to its recent adoption. It has, however, been widely welcomed on numerous grounds.
Gender
Dr. Aisha Fofana Ibrahim, a professor of gender studies at the University of Sierra Leone says that “The law is a huge win for women,”.
Ambition
Sonkita Conteh, Director of NGO Namati, says “To our knowledge, there is not a legal regime anywhere, in either hemisphere, that grants such robust rights to communities facing environmental harm”
Local Empowerment
Speaking to Namati, Momoh Bango, a farmer from the Subuya community in Sierra Leone explained:
“When an American and Philippine company wanted our land for a Pineapple plantation, they negotiated only with our Paramount Chief. We didn’t even see the lease. They took our land and cleared part of our forest. They promised us scholarships, schools, and jobs, but it has been five years and those promises still have not been met. I’m so happy that our rights as landowning families have been fully respected without any discrimination under these laws. The power to manage and make decisions relating to our land has been given to us through their passage.”
Environmental
The law has also been praised as a tool for environmental protection, with Namati’s CEO Vivek Maru, calling for it to serve as a model for the world to follow:
“Whether it is in Sierra Leone, Brazil, or the United States, the causes and consequences of climate change and environmental destruction are concentrated in communities with less wealth and less power, and in communities that face discrimination. To tackle the climate crisis, we need to confront this injustice. That means giving communities facing harm the power to protect themselves and play a leadership role in building a sustainable economy.”
What are the perceived limitations?
Unsettling traditional community dynamics
Idrissa Tarawillie in argues in the New York Times that, while the laws strengthen communities in dealings with foreign companies, new processes which determine who owns land risk pitting some Sierra Leoneans against one another, arguing that “Land in Sierra Leone is tied to issues of tribes, ethnicity and origin… Applying a liberal approach to land ownership without a thorough application of tradition and culture might lead to clashes.”
Deterrent to investment
Gerben Haringsma, the country director for Sierra Leone at Luxembourg based company ‘Socfin’, which has grown palm oil in the country for the decade, facing accusations of land grabs has argued the the new laws would spell the end of large-scaled investment into Sierra Leone. “With this law, populations do not have to be protected as major investors cannot start major projects anymore.”
However, Lands Minister Turad Senessie said the new laws would encourage investment by ensuring peace and order.
Is this policy relevant to other contexts?
Quoted in the New York Times, Cormac Cullinan, a Cape Town-based environmental lawyer, said the right to “free, prior and informed consent” is a worldwide issue. “Those who live somewhere have the greatest moral rights to be consulted and to say no... But that right is often not recognised in law.”
Indeed, no country is immune from these issues. Policies such as these must, however, be rooted in their local context. Countries differ in the sophistication of their existing protection, as well as community dynamics. The specifics of a policy must consider the culture, structure, norms, and traditions of communities at hand, as well as the nature of land use requested by companies. Certain contexts may also require a greater or lesser gender lens, depending on existing access to quality land for women in a given society.
The intention of this policy is relevant universally, and depending on the context at hand, suitability for policy transfer to other contexts will be varied, with highest relevance being for countries in the Global South. No country, however, can claim to have fully addressed this issue, and policies such as this can provide learning and inspiration for governments and civil society organisations globally on how to better protect the land rights of local communities.
Has this policy (or similar) been enacted successfully elsewhere?
According to the New York Times, NGOs and international organisations have been at the forefront of attempts to force governments and businesses to seek consent from local populations before starting projects which would impact the land the own, occupy or use.
Other countries are beginning to experiment with similar policies, although these are often less ambitious than the case of Sierra Leone. Liberia in 2018 adopted a law requiring prior consent from rural populations, although the government can still circumvent local communities to allow mining activities. Similarly, in February 2022 Ecuador enshrined the right to FPIC but it only applies to the country’s 14 recognised Indigenous groups.
It remains to be seen whether similar laws with a smaller scale or greater flexibility will be more or less successful than Sierra Leone’s broad and unequivocal approach to community land rights.
What is not included in the case, and what information do we not currently have?
The exact process by which this law came to be passed. For example, was there a consultation process and who was involved? What was the corporate pushback and how was it overcome? Information such as this would be useful in determining the feasibility of similar policies in other country contexts.
The long-term impact of this law on the environment, communities, economic growth, gender equality and more.
Implementation costs
