INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO PROTECT WOMEN’S CUSTOMARY LAND RIGHTS IN SIERRA LEONE

Within the framework of implementing the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT), this paper summarizes the empirical findings from three sequentially related phases of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) VGGT programme, implemented as a pilot project in 2018. The methodology used relied first on context analysis of the critical aspects influencing and hindering women´s land rights. Four ethnically diverse customary tenure communities of predominantly Temne, Limba and Mende were selected and surveyed to understand the current customary land tenure practices in four districts – Bombali in the North, Bo in the South, Kenema in the East and Port Loko in the North West. The context analysis results were used in the second phase to design and build the capacity and confidence of women leaders and land rights advocates in the selected rural pilot communities. The goal was to bolster understanding of women’s fundamental human rights and how to advocate gender equal land access rights. In the third (pilot implementation) phase of the programme SOLA Open Tenure2 was customized and applied to help women in the selected rural communities acquire the necessary technical competence to effectively participate in ascertaining, demarcating and protecting their customary land rights using SOLA Open Tenure.