Commentary/Opinion

Feedback and Recommendations on the Draft National Land Policy (2026–2035): Addressing Injustices and Advancing Participatory Land Governance

April 24, 2025

Reclaiming Heritage: A Decolonial Framework

This opinion essay aims to critically examine the current draft of the National Land Policy (2026-2035) and propose essential changes as part of the ongoing consultation. With validation activities continuing throughout April and May 2025, this is a crucial moment to ensure land justice for Kombo. Securing Futures, as land rights activists and members of Kombo’s land-owning communities, views this consultation process with a blend of hope and deep apprehension.

“Our land is our story, our identity, the very essence of who we are as Kombonkas.”

Imagine a Kombonka elder, Mba Mariama Bojang, who has tilled the same soil her ancestors did for centuries. Now, imagine officials telling her that this land, her family heritage, now belongs to the state. This is the reality for many in Kombo.

Like other African communities, the lives of Kombo’s inhabitants are linked to the soil of their ancestors. However, accidents of geography and history—the Atlantic coastline, mild climate, and European colonialism—has cast a unique shadow over this region and its land-owning clans. This confluence of historical factors spurred and continues to spur internal migration to Kombo. Indeed, many Gambians from other regions share six common aspirations: to move to Kombo; to migrate abroad; to send parents on the Hajj; to purchase land in Kombo; to build a home; and finally, to relocate their families from upcountry.

This internal migration has led to whole families abandoning their rural ancestral homes for Kombo. The ramifications of these societal changes have placed immense pressure on Kombo’s limited land resources while simultaneously increasing their value — a situation that made Kombo lands targets for dispossession through systemic state abuse. The result is the depriving of these Indigenous communities their birth rights.

While these dynamics reflect broader socio-economic trends, the state institutionalised them through legal frameworks that prioritised their control over communal ownership. Among these frameworks, the State Lands Act 1991 stands out as a key catalyst of dispossession. This law formalised the redefinition of Kombo lands as state property. The effect of this law not only disrupted traditional land governance systems but also entrenched inequalities, making the region vulnerable to further exploitation under the guise of development.

It is crucial to recognise that The Gambian government did not initiate the national land policy draft out of a genuine commitment to land equity. Funding conditions laid out by the World Bank funded West Africa Coastal Areas (WACA) Resilience Investment Project compelled the Gambia to initiate this exercise.

While the WACA program targets critical ecological challenges like coastal erosion, flooding, and pollution, it operates within a development framework that has significant land governance implications. We see a pattern here: the continuous trend where International Development Partners (IDPs) shape national agendas with ill-fitting generalised and formulaic templates.

Scrutinising The State Lands Act 1991: The Critical Turning Point

This legislation, a byproduct of the 1980s Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) represents a significant and deeply damaging shift in post-independence land governance. SAPs was a set of economic policies International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank imposed on developing countries as a condition for loans.

More than mere legislation, the State Lands Act inflicted a festering wound on Kombo, targeting its most productive, populous, and industrious areas: North, South, and Central. This disproportionate and selective application constitutes a gross violation of fundamental rights and a blatant disregard for long-established inheritance traditions.

Under the Act’s provisions, the state explicitly reclassified lands passed down through generations as “state lands,” fundamentally transforming communities from rightful owners into precarious tenants holding “deemed leaseholds” granted by the very entity that orchestrated their dispossession.

The consequences have been catastrophic, evidenced by numerous cases. In Brufut and Yundum, the Jammeh regime seized hectares of communal lands and gifted them to a private developer, Mustapha Taf Njie. The communities rejected the paltry compensation Taf Njie offered, yet he proceeded with his developments against their wishes.

There is substantial evidence that officials of the Ministry of Lands and the Department of Physical Planning actively engage in corrupt and illegal land dealings. In provable cases, plots of land from areas the state designated for “public purposes”—such as housing estates and associated amenities—have been improperly distributed amongst state officials, friends, family, and other connected individuals. This systematic corruption undermines both the stated public interest justification for land seizures and the legitimacy of the entire land governance system.

Across Kombo, the state has seized vast tracts of land, offering compensation which amounts to a tiny fraction of the true value, and none in some instances. Sukuta Nema Su, Sukuta Salagi and Brusubi are examples. Even the slightest sign of resistance against this systemic injustice elicits violent intervention by security forces. These forces typically arrive in full tactical gear reminiscent of preparations for armed conflict rather than civilian engagement. They use physical repression, including beatings, arrests, detentions, and demolition of buildings.

Even legal challenges by the land-owning communities have been predictably unsuccessful, as exemplified by the Brufut Manneh clan v Taf Holding (High Court of The Gambia – Civil Suit 44/03)[1]. Despite the clan embarking on the legal route in the forlorn hope of holding on to their inheritance, Taf proceeded to construct hundreds of domestic and commercial units in what he calls Brufut Gardens, and the AU Villas. These are lands with an estimated market value of US$12-15 million at today’s rate at very conservative estimates and which Njie offered less than US$6,000 in compensation.

The ongoing demolitions in Sukuta Salagi further illustrate this perpetual injustice, where the state demolishes the houses and properties of the customary landowners. What is even more disturbing is members of land-owning communities consistently report rejections of their applications for plots on their ancestral lands.

Although the state designates these lands for “public purposes”—such as housing estates and associated amenities, ostensibly making every citizen eligible—it routinely rejects applications from members of the land-owning communities seeking to build homes for their expanding families. When, these indigenes rightly build on their land, compelled by necessity and the state’s rejection of their applications, the state demolishes their buildings.

This is not a series of isolated incidents, but a systematic pattern of dispossession throughout Kombo that favours outsiders over the indigenes. This creates tensions and threatens social cohesion, with the potential to escalate into civil strife.

A common expression one hears throughout Brufut powerfully captures the depth of feelings:

“They didn’t just take our farmlands, rich with historical names; they

took our heritage, imposing their fanciful names upon our land and

expecting us to celebrate the outsiders now living in their exclusive

enclave.”

While proponents might argue that a streamlined, nationalised land governance framework engenders developments to meet infrastructure needs and population growth, it is crucial to recognise that these benefits often accrue primarily to new developments and newcomers—not the dispossessed indigenes.

These communities perceive the state to be a threat to their livelihoods and the tenure security of the next generation through the dispossessions. Thus, any talk of infrastructure developments causes more ire than desire. To therefore suggest gratitude for incidental benefits from these communities’ own loss is to rationalise injustice.

Analysing The Draft National Land Policy: Unresolved Concerns

While the current draft policy articulates laudable goals of equitable access and sustainable management, we identify a fundamental concern in its conspicuous silence on the State Lands Act 1991. As the policy undergoes regional and national validation in the coming weeks, we urge policymakers to address this critical gap. Despite acknowledging the need to ”harmonise legal standards of tenure governance” (Section 9.4), the current draft fails to explicitly address or amend this legalised illegality.

Policies are not neutral instruments; they reflect interests and reveal power dynamics. As Ben Suwareh, a good governance activist, notes, “The omission of the State Lands Act from the new policy effectively perpetuates the injustices it has enabled for decades.” This omission effectively legitimises the ongoing elite capture and economic exploitation enabled by the Act. Section 7.4 explicitly allows state entities to continue leasing lands to investors without adequate compensation to customary owners, perpetuating systemic disinheritance.

Deconstructing The Land Reform Narrative: An Urgent Necessity

The dominant narrative often presents land tenure reform as necessary to address insecurities in “Indigenous” systems and promote development. This simplistic narrative obscures the fact that tenure insecurity is a result of capitalist, free-market policies imposed by “International Development Partners.” These models, rooted in “modernisation” theory and neoliberal principles, prioritise individualisation and commodification of land. A fundamental clash with customary tenure systems, constituting a form of epistemic violence and delegitimising Indigenous knowledge systems.

A key paradox lies in the policy’s treatment of gender. While Section 7.5 aims to protect women’s land rights, it overlooks the sophisticated gender-sensitive systems that historically existed. The traditional system provided women with distinct pathways to land ownership: Faaro, Naako and Tandaako. Men, by contrast, had a single path: Kunko.

The imposing of Western models which focus on individualism rather than communalism, has undermined these traditional protections. Both genders have lost land, but women have suffered a double dispossession, losing both land and the cultural frameworks that legitimised claims to land.

The draft policy thus ironically offers to “safeguard” women’s rights through the very frameworks that contributed to their erosion. This emphasis on land titling and registration touted as essential for tenure security represents a “manufactured crisis”, disrupting social contracts and eroding social capital, creating insecurity, and opening avenues for elite land acquisition. This process leads to dispossession, erosion of social cohesion, gender-imbalanced resource access, and ecological unsustainability. The draft policy perpetuates a simplistic “traditional versus modern” narrative, legitimising dispossession.

Proposing Essential Changes: A Path Forward

Foundation for Reform

To correct these injustices and ensure that the policy serves the interests of all Gambians, particularly the dispossessed and the marginalised, fundamental changes are imperative:

Revise The State Lands Act 1991

The Gambia must repeal or substantively amend the State Lands Act of 1991, moving beyond vague promises of reform to implement concrete changes aligned with constitutional principles and international best practices. These amendments should establish robust safeguards to protect ancestral claims and communal land rights from expropriation under the guise of “public purpose” or investment initiatives that primarily benefit the elite.

Centering Indigenous Traditions

The reformed policy must transcend mere recognition of customary systems by centering Indigenous traditions in land governance. This requires the Gambian state to formally acknowledge the authority of clan structures in land administration, document customary laws while preserving their inherent flexibility, and create a hybrid governance model that meaningfully integrates traditional authorities with modern administrative structures. In this reformed system, the state must respect oral traditions and testimonies as valid evidence of land claims, honouring the ways communities have preserved and transmitted knowledge across generations.

Immediate Moratorium

The state should impose an immediate moratorium on all further allocations of land designated for “public purposes” until it implements comprehensive reforms. This pause will create space for systemic review while preventing continuation of harmful practices. Additionally, the government must freeze land already allocated but not yet developed pending proper investigation, particularly where conflicts or disputes have arisen. This temporary measure is essential for establishing trust in the reform process.

Investigating Past Corruption

The state must confront past land corruption directly through the establishment of a special investigative unit with statutory powers to review suspicious allocations, subpoena documents, and conduct public hearings. This unit must document the full extent of misappropriation by state officials who have diverted lands designated for “public purposes” to colleagues, family, friends, and other connected individuals. The resulting comprehensive record will inform both restitution efforts and future policy reforms, creating accountability for historical wrongs.

Land Recovery Mechanisms

The government must establish legal and administrative pathways to reclaim dispossessed lands and return them to their intended public purpose or to their original communal owners where appropriate. In cases where development has already occurred, officials must implement benefit-sharing arrangements that ensure affected communities receive meaningful compensation for their losses. Community participation must be central in negotiating these arrangements rather than imposed through top-down decisions that maintain existing power imbalances.

Criminal Accountability

The state must pursue criminal accountability to address past wrongs and deter future corruption. The government should develop specific legal provisions for prosecuting officials involved in land corruption, with penalties including fines, removal from office, and criminal charges proportionate to the scale of corruption. The state should extend the statute of limitations for land corruption offences to ensure judicial addressing of historical cases, and no official, regardless of rank or political connections, should be immune from this accountability process.

Overhauling Allocation Procedures

The entire process of public land allocation requires complete redesign, incorporating mandatory transparency requirements, multiple levels of oversight, community involvement, and regular external audits. All proposed allocations should require public notice periods, community consultations, and independent assessments of environmental and social impacts. The government must implement a digital system to track allocations, reduce manual interference, and create immutable records resistant to tampering. The state must codify these reforms in law rather than relying on administrative directives that officials could easily reverse with changes in political leadership.

Empowering Traditional Leaders

The Gambian state should empower traditional leaders as intermediaries in the new land governance system but not co-opt them as arms of state machinery. Officials should provide comprehensive training on new policy and legal frameworks, resources to conduct community education on land rights, formal integration into land administration structures, support to document customary practices, and authority to represent community interests in negotiations with the state and investors. This approach acknowledges their cultural legitimacy while enhancing their capacity to serve their communities effectively.

Institutional Strengthening

The Departments of Lands and Physical Planning require substantial restructuring and resourcing to fulfil their mandates properly. The state should equip them with modern surveying equipment, digitised record-keeping systems, and professional staff with appropriate training in both technical skills and community engagement approaches. Without this institutional strengthening, even the best-designed policies will fail in implementation.

Inclusive Communication

To ensure inclusive participation, the Ministry of Lands must diversify its communication strategies to reach all Gambians, especially those in low-literacy communities. Communications should include radio and television broadcasts in local languages, regular community meetings with translators and visual aids, illustrated guides explaining land rights, mobile-friendly digital content, and targeted outreach sessions for elders, women, and youth. This comprehensive approach to information sharing will enable meaningful participation across all segments of society.

Retroactive Justice

Securing Futures specifically calls for retroactive review of all land transfers made under the Act, prioritising cases where landowners rejected grossly inadequate compensation. Where returning land is impractical, the state must establish mechanisms for fair market value compensation based on current rather than historical land values. The state must return undeveloped portions of expropriated land to original communal owners and recognise customary ownership alongside formal titles to create a pluralistic legal framework that respects diverse relationships to land.

Community Benefit-Sharing

Developments on former communal lands must implement community benefit-sharing requirements of at least 25% of profits or reorganise operations based on co-operative principles. These arrangements will ensure affected communities maintain meaningful ownership stakes, participate in decision-making processes, and receive equitable distributions of benefits from developments on their ancestral lands. Such co-operative models align with traditional communal land governance systems while accommodating economic development needs, creating pathways for inclusive prosperity rather than continued dispossession.

Quantifying The Injustice: Economic Impact

The scale of dispossession in Kombo is immense. Documented cases reveal hundreds of thousands of hectares seized from our communities. In one area of Brufut [2]alone, the state has expropriated 1.01km² of customary land—comprising major developments: Brufut Heights, Brufut Gardens, AU Presidential Villas. This brazen seizure has stripped landowners of both economic resources and cultural heritage.

A conservative valuation of this land at GMD2,520 per square metre (USD35/m²)—reflecting current property markets where a standard 400m² plot commands GMD1,008,000 (USD14,000)— the total worth is approximately USD35.03 million.

This expropriated area represents approximately 2,502 standard plots, each capable of sustaining a household from our community. Even using the lowest valuation of USD20/m² for undeveloped land, our community has suffered losses of at least USD20.01 million (GMD1.44 billion). At mid-range valuations of USD30/m², this rises to USD30.02 million (GMD2.16 billion), while prime land valuations of USD40/m² would place our loss at USD40.03 million (GMD2.88 billion).

When valued at current market rates, the magnitude of the dispossession becomes clear:

Valuation Level	Rate per m²	Total Value (1.01km²)	Equivalent 400m² Plots
Conservative	GMD2,520 (USD35)	USD35.03 million	2,502 plots
Minimum (undeveloped)	GMD1,440 (USD20)	USD20.01 million	2,502 plots
Mid-range	GMD2,160 (USD30)	USD30.02 million	2,502 plots
Prime location	GMD2,880 (USD40)	USD40.03 million	2,502 plots

The state’s exploitation of Brufut’s economic advantages—its coastal location and proximity to the Kombo Coastal Highway—without providing fair compensation represents a flagrant injustice. The valuation of USD35.03 million quantifies not just monetary loss but the systematic erasure of our community rights.

Extrapolating this pattern to all documented cases in Kombo, the estimated market value is in billions of US dollars in stolen intergenerational wealth, with our communities receiving negligible compensation—often less than 0.05% of the market value. This is not just about monetary value; it represents lost livelihoods, destroyed cultural heritage, disrupted traditional knowledge, and damaged social fabric.

The State Lands Act 1991 has facilitated one of the largest wealth transfers in The Gambia’s history—from communities to elites—under the guise of development. Any land policy failing to address this fundamental injustice perpetuates this exploitation.

Conclusion: A Call for Decolonising Land Governance

This opinion essay represents our contribution to the validation process of the Draft National Land Policy. With regional validation beginning this month and national validation to follow in May 2025, Gambians have a critical window of opportunity to ensure the final policy truly advances land governance in The Gambia. The current draft, despite its stated goals, risks perpetuating colonial and neocolonial patterns of dispossession if not revised.

The quantifiable economic losses represent not just financial harm but the systematic erasure of epistemologies and Indigenous governance systems. Our vision extends beyond reclaiming monetary value—we envision communities reconnected with ancestral lands where traditional knowledge systems flourish and development honours, rather than erases, cultural heritage. True reform means reversing this erasure, recognising that when communities reclaim their land, they reclaim their stories, identity, and future.

Such transformation would strengthen The Gambia as a whole—reducing land conflicts, creating sustainable development patterns, preserving cultural knowledge that benefits all citizens, and healing divisions that threaten national cohesion. This struggle connects to similar movements nationally, regionally, and globally. This draft policy comes at a critical time: it can either reinforce a “manufactured crisis” or be a transformative instrument that honours plurality in land governance.

With the focus of the elites and land prospectors now fixed on Niumi and Foni, we urge communities to form intergenerational activist initiatives and build solidarity networks. Standing unified and prepared is essential before the patterns of dispossession seen in Kombo repeat themselves.

Securing Futures calls on all stakeholders to participate in the regional validation process to ensure the policy addresses issues of critical concern to all. The decisions made in the coming weeks will shape land governance for generations to come. As the validation process unfolds, Securing Futures remains ready to engage constructively while firmly advocating for essential changes.

The question remains: will policymakers choose to continue a neocolonial and neoliberal project, or embrace an approach centring justice, sustainability, and community sovereignty? The consultations represent perhaps the final opportunity to transform this draft into a powerful instrument for genuine emancipation. Let us work together to reclaim our land, our heritage, our epistemologies, and our future.

Prepared by:

Dave Manneh – Research Lead

Signed off by:

Ahmed Manjang – Chief Executive

On behalf of Kombo’s land-owning communities, who entrusted us with their experiences and narratives, and whose future we are committed to defending.

Securing Futures: Land Rights Action Collaborative
Kombo Gunjur

The Gambia