his training manual was developed by Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), Social Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Development (SESDev) and Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) for communities in Liberia. It helps increase awareness of the key principles surrounding free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and to improve the implementation of these principles in practice.
Free, Prior and Informed Consent – known as ‘FPIC’ – is an international legal standard protected by both Liberia’s national law and the legally binding human rights treaties to which Liberia is a party. FPIC is a collective right which belongs to a whole community. It means that communities have a right to make decisions through their own freely chosen representatives and customary or other institutions and to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes that might affect their lands, territories and resources – whether the community has a deed for those lands or not.
