Support To The Liberian Land Commission

UN-HABITAT is the United Nations agency for cities and human settlements. UN-HABITAT leads the Housing, Land and Property Area of Responsibility under the Inter-Agency Standing Committee's global humanitarian cluster system. UN-HABITAT also hosts the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), an international partnership committed to the development and implementation of pro-poor land policies. Through an inter-agency mechanism, UN-HABITAT collaborates with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), and the Peace-Building Support Office to improve UN, EU and Government capacity to address land and natural resource conflicts. UN-HABITAT has been actively supporting peace-building efforts in Liberia since 2003. UN-HABITAT can make several important contributions to Liberia. First, there is a clear gap in capacity building support to the Land Commission. While land is widely recognized as a critical peace-building issue, very little direct support has been channeled to the Land Commission. Second, UN-HABIT A T's approach to capacity-development (embedding itself with Government entities, combining on-the-job and conventional training, etc.) is well-suited to the needs of the Land Commission. Third, UN-HABITAT has a growing body of experience and expertise in addressing land issues in crisis-affected contexts, and this global experience can be brought in to support the Government of Liberia and the Land Commission in particular. Lessons LearntMany valuable lessons-learned - both from the initial Peace-Building Fund phase as well as from experience in other countries - have been incorporated into the design of the current project. The lessons learned include: 

1. The Land Commissioners come from different backgrounds and only have a 5- year mandate.Capacity building and institutional support have been identified by the Commissioners as a priority.
2. The Commission's Technical secretariat has been playing a critical role in implementing activities and supporting the Commissioners in their  role of coordinating land sector reforms;
3. Land- related challenges are very diverse. Particularly relevant to the Commissions's work are the gaps between the capital, Monrovia , and the counties and the gaps between the different stakeholder groups (women, youth, traditional autthorities. etc)
4. Consultations and other activities targeting specific stakeholder groups are in general more effective and allow groups that may traditionally be excluded from the decision making process ( such as women and youth ) to contribute their perspective
5. A systems approach to addressing land conflict is essential, enabling different actors within the system to contribute to conflict prevention, conflict management and conlfict resolution.
6. Coordination in the land sector is critical to achieving results at scale and to promote systemic reform.
7. Information and outreach must be an ongoing activity and allocated specific time and resources.