Sierra Leone

The West African country is generally seen as an excellent example of conflict resolution with international support, and of the successful restoration of governmental and societal structures. President Julius Maada Bio, who has been in office since 2018, has been pursuing development-oriented reform policies which also actively involve civil society. The current development strategy, the Medium Term National Development Plan 2024-2030, is cause for hope. It has produced the “big 5” agenda, with the food security programme Feed Salone (Salone = Sierra Leone) at its centre: the aim here is to strengthen agriculture so that by 2030 the country will have achieved self-sufficiency.

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Current situation

Presidential and parliamentary elections held since the end of the civil war have been judged by international observers to be fair and proper, except for the elections in 2023, which ended in controversy. Talks between the government and the opposition were resumed after the Commonwealth and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) mediated between the two sides, with a declaration of national unity being signed in October 2023. The declaration resulted, among other things, in the establishment of a cross-party electoral commission and an investigation into all three levels (presidential, parliamentary and municipal) of the 2023 elections. The Commission has submitted its recommendations and a start has been made on implementing them.

It appears, however, that political tensions in the country have not abated. On 26 November 2023, the government reported an attempted coup. The highly challenging societal context, the high level of poverty among the population and a precarious food situation with regularly occurring famines continue to threaten political stability and social peace.

Sierra Leone has been a bilateral partner country for German development cooperation since 2021. Germany’s declared aim is to support the poorest people in particular, especially at a time when others, who have played an important role in this context in the past, are withdrawing their support.

Peace not yet sufficiently secured

Sierra Leone’s recent history has been marked by huge suffering and distress: Between 1991 and 2002, the country experienced one of the most brutal and violent civil wars Africa has seen in recent decades. Tens of thousands were killed or seriously injured, children were abducted and forced into combat, women and girls were subjected to sexual violence, and 60 per cent of the population was displaced. Much of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed.

In 2014, just twelve years after the end of the civil war, an Ebola epidemic broke out in Sierra Leone, with disastrous consequences for the economy and society. The country had not yet fully recovered when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, putting an additional strain on development. The impacts of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine are also making the severe poverty even worse.

The current United Nations Human Development Index ranks Sierra Leone 185th out of 193 countries. More than 20 years after the end of the civil war, peacebuilding structures have still not become sufficiently well established to exclude a descent back into organised mass violence.