Five years since the Ministry of Lands & Country Planning launched the National Land Policy (NLP)–the first-ever comprehensive land policy reform since 1966, effective land management is still a challenge in Sierra Leone.

For his latest research, DSTI Fellow Musa Kpaka‘s conducted a national survey of Chiefdom Land Committees (CLC) established by the NLP to “administer land in the chiefdoms”. In DSTI Policy Brief 1002: The 2015 National Land Policy’s Impact on Land Issues in Rural Communities in Sierra Leone, Kpaka highlights various ways in which Chiefdom Land Committees impacted land tenure security, land disputes and litigations, and land transactions in rural Sierra Leone. He compares the state of land management between those chiefdoms that failed to implement the NLP’s Chiefdom Land Committees and those that did.

Kpaka‘s findings and recommendations highlight the limits and promises of rural reform at a time when the national government is set to review the NLP.

He is a Ph.D. candidate at the London School of Economics (LSE) where he explores the effects of institutions on economic outcomes.

Download DSTI Policy Brief 1002: The 2015 National Land Policy’s Impact on Land Issues in Rural Communities in Sierra Leone.