Liberia- 1st- Land

By Daniel Morris | 4. November 2025

CHAPTER TWO: SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

2.3. Thematic Focus of the NAPBHR

2.3.1. Land and Natural Resources

[…] A decade of policy and legal reforms targeting land and the natural resource sector and progress towards more inclusive decision-making about natural resources and benefit sharing is reshaping the relationships among communities, the government, and the private sector. In principle, this marks a dramatic and progressive shift from past predatory approaches to governance when large segments of the Liberian population “were systematically excluded and marginalized from institutions of political governance and access to key economic assets” including land and land-based resources.

[…]

To reinforce this shift, the government enacted the Land Rights Act in 2018. The Land Rights Act maintains “that all communities, families, individuals, and legal entities enjoy secure land rights free of the fear that their land will be taken from them, except in accordance with due process of law” and “to confirm, declare and ensure equal access and equal protection with respect to land ownership, use and management, including ensuring that Customary Land is given protection equal to Private Land and that land ownership is permitted for all Liberians regardless of their identity, whether based on custom, ethnicity, tribe, language, gender or otherwise.”

The Land Rights Act also explicitly declares customary land as private property, granting it constitutional protection, and granting the government the authority and responsibility to protect it as such…Given that the overwhelming majority of Liberians access, use, control, and transfer land based on customary norms, recognizing, and formalizing customary tenure will provide land tenure security for many Liberians, especially those in the rural parts of the country.

[…] consultations identified the following concerns related to land, natural resource development and business:

  1. Limited direct community involvement in benefit redistribution mechanisms/systems from the exploitation of natural resources despite the constitutional imperative for equitable sharing of benefits.
  2. Land grabs leading to food insecurity and loss of livelihoods for community dwellers. Such land grabs often involve forced evictions and other land rights violations.
  3. Communities deprived of access to sacred lands and water.
  4. Influx (recruiting contractors/workers while excluding members of affected communities breed conflict) of workers into plantation and logging areas resulting in increased conflict, land shortages, and other social vulnerability of women and girls.
  5. Criminalization and harassment of community members and civil society organizations that stand up for their rights, with related impacts on their family and social status.
  6. Lack of proper FPIC (Free, Prior and Informed Consent) process during creation of protected areas, monoculture plantations, logging concessions or other land-based investments.
  7. Inadequate government monitoring in observing stakeholder’s engagement, and inadequate compliance with provisions of contracts and MoU and consultation lead to the detriment of host communities.
  8. Lack of adequate human rights awareness and environmental impact assessment in awarding concessions.
  9. Persistent conflicts between rural communities and concessions.
  10. Exclusion of women in land ownership and decision making about land and natural resources governance.

CHAPTER THREE: POLICY ACTIONS

This chapter presents strategic policy actions that the Government of Liberia intends to undertake during the next five years. These have been clustered under the six thematic areas of focus for this plan and aligned to the three pillars of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

3.1. Land and Natural Resources

To address the human rights concerns related to land and natural resources, the government of Liberia intends to do the following:

a) The State’s Duty to Protect the right to land and natural resources.

i. Support the inclusion of human rights policies and standards in all contracts by businesses and concessionaires. Memoranda of understanding and other businessrelated policy documents shall have a clause that spells out the human rights obligations of the parties, including possible sanctions for violations. Lead agencies to realize this goal shall include the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, National Bureau of Concession, National Investment Commission, Liberia Land Authority, and the Ministry of Labor

ii. Ensure attainment of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent of the host community to enable the community the right to give or withhold consent to proposed projects that may affect the lands they customarily own, occupy, or otherwise use. To do this, the government will use participatory methods of stakeholder identification and analysis to ensure FPIC is conducted before the commencement of any project. As a necessity in this regard, the capacity of community leaders and decision-makers will be enhanced to negotiate with businesses and ensure that their rights are protected, at all times.

iii. Ensure that companies conduct a thorough and detailed Stakeholder Identification and Analysis (SIA) in their area of operations, and companies shall provide invaluable data for sustainable stakeholder consultation and engagement. (In light of this proposition stakeholders suggest the circles of principal landowners’ interests and their agents; including community leaders and members, CSOs, and other advocacy groups.)

iv. Ensure the conduct of Human Rights Conflict and Environmental Impact Assessment when land is being acquired for development or business purposes.

v. Improve robust legislative oversights as well as its social contract side of effective pro-people representation. All multimillion-dollar contracts particularly in the areas of land purchase or lease for mineral and forest resource extraction, as well as for purposes of agricultural plantation formation, shall take a “bottom-to-top” approach, wherein the local inhabitants of counties, districts, and communities, shall be meaningfully consulted.

vi. Initiate efforts to minimize the negative impact of resettlement with emphasis on the livelihood system of affected communities. Environmental protection issues will be at the forefront, and all necessary considerations for alternatives to uprooting existing settlements will be given to avoid human rights abuses. Where resettlement for business becomes necessary, government and investors shall be guided by best practices such as the Principles of Resettlement enunciated by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

vii. The government shall ensure that companies conduct a thorough and detailed Stakeholder Identification and Analysis in their area of operations, and companies shall provide vital data for sustainable stakeholder consultation and engagement. (In light of this paragraph stakeholders suggest the circles of principal landed interests and their agents including indigenous and other local community leaders and members, CSOs and other advocacy groups.)

b) Corporate Responsibility to Respect the rights to land and natural resources:

i. Businesses shall have Community Relations Guidelines as part of their corporate accountability. This shall be developed in conjunction with the community stakeholders – in this case, in communities offering leases for concession plantations and mining concerns.

ii. The Community Relations Guidelines shall draw from the report of the Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) and Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA). The company shall also be expected to conduct a Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment as part of its entry strategy. The extent of these assessments will depend on the kind of business the company is involved in.

c) Access to Remedy for Land and Natural Resources-related human rights violations and abuses

Below are the policy actions on access to remedy for land and natural resources human rights abuses and violations:  i. The Liberia Land Authority (LLA) shall ensure that issues related to women’s property rights are part of the Land Commission’s efforts.