Social Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Development (SESDev) is a Liberian organization advancing community land rights, strengthening local governance and ensuring fair and sustainable use of forests and natural resources. Since its founding in 2009, SESDev has worked alongside rural communities – listening, informing and supporting them to claim their rights and shape their futures. Its work is grounded in the truth that communities have the right and the ability to determine how their land and resources are used. 

SESDev operates in some of Liberia’s most ecologically important and politically contested landscapes, where communities steward biodiverse forests under increasing pressure from logging, oil palm concessions and unregulated carbon markets. Despite a progressive legal framework recognizing community land rights, enforcement remains weak and many communities lack the resources and information to assert those rights. SESDev works at this intersection of rights, governance and sustainability. Its approach combines legal expertise, grassroots organizing and long-standing relationships to help communities secure land, strengthen governance systems and hold institutions and corporations accountable. 

SESDev began as a grassroots response to land injustice. In the decade-plus since, it has grown into a trusted civil society voice on land rights and natural resource governance in Liberia. Its participatory, inclusive model involves co-creating solutions with communities, strengthening local leadership and building bridges between communities, government and national and international policy processes. This ensures that development, conservation and climate initiatives are grounded in community leadership and lawful process.