By Morlai Sesay
The National Land Commission Sierra Leone proceeded with its sensitization and awareness-raising drive on land governance reforms in the Western Rural district on Monday, 8th April 2024. The event, which was held at the Western Rural District Council hall, brought together key stakeholders like land administrators, a member of parliament, and a section chief with the goal to deliberate on how the commission intends to implement the 2022 Land right Act and some of the features to resolve the prolong bottlenecks on land saga in particularly the Western rural district.
Speaking about the purpose of the event, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Dr. Philip Pessina Monya, updated that the purpose of the gathering was for the commission to update the public about its work, function, mandate, mission, and vision to the stakeholders in order to educate everyone about the work of the commission. The Director emphasized that the commission regarded the district's stakeholders as key pillars that would significantly facilitate the commission's work in their respective zones. Hence, they are very instrumental in land management and administration. He continued to explain that the session aims to let the commission better understand the different land values in that part of the country, ranging from how the lands are used for economic purposes, social purposes, and environmental purposes. The needs of others, according to Monya, is also another aspect that the commission is so dearly interested in since it is very essential to get the needs of others in land use and land management in order to get a successful outcome. The Director also reiterated the commission’s desire to learn from the stakeholders so that they would be able to gather balanced information that would help the commission to make an informed decision.
He pointed out that the commission further aspires to collaborate with the stakeholders to plan and integrate them into the commission's activities so that the problems often faced with land issues, such as boundary problems, land grabbing, and double or triple selling, could be greatly minimized.
During his presentation, the Project Coordinator of the Sierra Leone Land Administration Project, Dr. Alphajor Cham, intimated the gathering about establishing land information systems. According to him, they are working towards a unified system of land registry and cadastre services (ICT infrastructure, business process re-engineering, and system requirement drafting), digitizing and archiving of existing/ historic land records (georeferencing and vectorization) design process, and records management strategy.
In another development, he emphasized that the SLLAP would be looking into the registration of land tenure and property rights. To achieve that, he stated that they are going to establish a GIS-based biometric land title registration system, which would enhance the enactment of land title registration for land title adjudication and registration; integrate existing land records ( matching with the base maps and cadastre index maps) for both public and private into the LMIS.
Regarding the systematic survey and registration of land parcels in Freetown, Cham stressed that they would identify and map parcels and assess their legal and legitimate rights.
Commenting on the changing role of women in the administration of land in Sierra Leone, the Deputy Commissioner General of the National Land Commission, Madam Susan Mamatormah Rogers, updated that the commission had set the pace for women to claim their place in society as proud land owners. She pointed out that the medium-term gains of the laws in the Act would spur an increase of women’s quota to 50%, which she said remains the commission’s ultimate goal. Madam Rogers asserted that “it is a challenge we must take, remembering our struggle for inclusion in governance”.
As the commission intensifies efforts to create a better awareness on land reforms in Sierra Leone, As the National Land Commission intensifies efforts to create better awareness of land reform in Sierra Leone and the operation of its work, Ehila Noah, the Commissioner of the Cooperate Communication and Advocacy Department, spoke on the importance of this initiative and how the commission aims to improve better communication between stakeholders in the country about the 2022 Land Act.
According to her, the awareness-raising campaigns by the commission have the penchant to affect stakeholders’ behavioral change in land administration across the country. She stressed that this adaptation measure encompasses actions that would promote awareness in order to encourage individual and societal behavioral changes to address the altered conditions of land conflict and to promote adaptation measures with the new laws in the Act. Noah emphasized that “Not all stakeholders are aware and informed about their vulnerability and the measures they can take to pro-actively adapt to the new laws in the Act.
Awareness raising and effective sensitization of stakeholders are essential components for the adaptation process so that our target audience can manage and resolve land conflicts amicably, enhance adaptive capacity, and reduce overall vulnerability of land owners”.
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