In a watershed moment for land rights in Liberia and across Africa, President George Weah on Sept. 19 signed into law a land reform bill that extends land rights to millions of rural Liberians.
The Land Rights Act ensures, for the first time, that the land rights of rural Liberians are recognized, protected, and guaranteed by law – an essential ingredient for these communities to achieve secure land rights. Under the previous land tenure system, as much as 80 percent of Liberians lived without legally recognized rights to land.
This guidance aims to provide companies with an overview of the links between land and human rights enshrined in these agreements and in official statements issued by treaty monitoring bodies. While it focuses on Ghana with a non-exhaustive examination its human rights obligations with an overview of the most significant agreements pertaining to land-based investments, it will be useful for companies working in other countries because the agreements presented have been ratified and signed by a large number of countries.
The Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights developed the Women’s Land Tenure Framework to assist anyone who is interested in understanding the complex issues associated with women’s land rights — officials, grassroots organizations, international technical advisers, policymakers, development practitioners, women’s rights advocates, land rights advocates, people who are developing programs to assist women farmers, people who are concerned with food security, and others.
Land is the most important asset for many rural Liberian women and men, and is often a family’s primary source of cash income, food and nutritional security, health care, and education. Though women play a central role in agricultural production in Liberia, women’s rights and access to land are often not equal to those of men due to biases in the formal legal framework and customary law.