SIERRA LEONE
Urban farming near Freetown. Sierra Leone has great agricultural potential 2008.
© Debra Percival
To be able to switch on lights for the first time – earlier this year – brought expectation of change for those citizens of Freetown who were used to being in the dark.
President Ernest Bai Koroma won a slim victory in the run-off elections in September 2007, and energy generation remains a top priority. The Bumbuna hydro electric power plant project, which Koroma has himself described as, “the longest hydro project in human history”, should be completed this year and there is anticipation of other projects to boost output beyond Freetown to rural areas. Koroma has told the public that he will not stop “until we are in a position of getting 100 megawatts for the country.”
It’s now over five years since the end of a brutal 11-year diamond-fuelled conflict waged by rebels that displaced almost half the population, left tens of thousands dead and others suffering, and government bodies and the economy in tatters.
Sierra Leone is still at the bottom of the United Nations’ Human Development (UNDP) Index. Yet with the assistance of international donors, including the EU, is building up government institutions and reforming all sectors of the economy: mining, agriculture and tourism for all Sierra Leoneans.
