Sierra Leone Reform course in danger?

In 2021, Sierra Leone was given the status of a bilateral partner country under German development cooperation. Since 2006, the country had been benefiting from regional support provided by Germany via the “Fragile States of West Africa” fund.

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Current situation

Since the end of the civil war in 2002, fair and peaceful elections had taken place regularly in Sierra Leone. That changed with the elections in June 2023, which were won – according to the official records – by the incumbent president Bio. The independent coalition National Election Watch expressed doubts about the election results and they were not recognised by the opposition. The elections were also deemed not transparent and not credible by the donor community.

Talks between the government and the opposition were only 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 envisages, among other things, the establishment of a cross-party electoral commission and an investigation into all three levels (presidential, parliamentary and municipal) of the 2023 elections.

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.

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 against Ukraine are also making the severe poverty even worse.

The current United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) ranks Sierra Leone 184th 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.