Headline : Securing land tenure rights for farmers in Sierra Leone

Read more from the original article on here at www.fao.org.

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Protecting farmers’ access to land and natural resources

In Sierra Leone, the livelihoods of many people depend on having secure and equitable access to and control over natural resources. However, increased pressure on land, forestry and fisheries compounded by weak tenure governance has led to ownership disputes. The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forestry (VGGT) are designed to safeguard tenure rights, ensure equal access to land and protect the rights of every citizen from any kind of discrimination in accessing land and other resources. To redress tenure issues in the country, in 2014, the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture and FAO began supporting the government of Sierra Leone in the implementation of the voluntary guidelines on land tenure. This partnership has evolved into an inclusive collaboration between state and non-state actors using the voluntary guidelines to develop policies, review laws and strengthen those governance systems to better manage and secure legitimate tenure rights for every farmer in the country.

Two-thirds of Sierra Leone’s population is involved in subsistence agriculture. Farmers – most of them women - operate in an informal and precarious system without any legal titles to their lands.  In the aftermath of the country’s 11 year civil war, the government of Sierra Leone began a long overdue process to modernise its land tenure system and put in place enabling policies so that each parcel of land could be put to its most economically valuable use.

Sierra Leone is no stranger to reforming policies or drafting laws on land tenure. What marked a departure from traditional policy-making was that for the first time in the country’s history, not only did ministers sit with civil society and businesses to discuss cross-cutting issues on tenure governance, but they also used the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forestry (VGGT) as a guiding force in drafting a new land policy that was fair, easy to implement and accepted by everyone.

Read more from the original article on here at www.fao.org.

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