Cross border trading: Sierra Leone and her neighbours

Despite efforts to promote inter-African trade, significant barriers to cross border trade remain throughout much of the continent. Persistent and cumbersome trade barriers drive trade into informality. Official statistics fail to fully capture cross border trading estimates, which contributes to lower levels of tax collection and enforcement of regulations

Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate and Misalignment: The Sierra Leone Perspective

This paper estimates the equilibrium real effective exchange rate and determine the level of exchange rate misalignment in Sierra Leone, for the period 1980 to 2018. The paper utilizes the behavioral equilibrium exchange rate methodology within the Johansen maximum likelihood framework to estimate the long run equilibrium real effective exchange rate. The unit root test result shows that all the variables are integrated of order one, whilst the cointegration test establishes the existence of one cointegrating vector as evidenced by both the Trace and Maximum Eigen Statistics. The normalized long run results reveal that openness, government expenditure and money supply were the most significant determinants of the real effective exchange rate in the long run. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the real effective exchange rate experienced sustained deviation from the long run equilibrium real effective exchange rate during the study period, with episodes of overvaluation and undervaluation. Specifically, the real effective exchange rate was overvalued by 3.69 percent during the period between 1980-1985; undervalued by 1.8 percent between 1986-1997, and overvalued by 0.9 percent between 1998-2004, Thus, the paper reveals episodes of misalignment of the real effective exchange rate. Based on these findings, the study recommends that, the monetary authorities should ensure stability of the exchange rate and maintain price stability, through sterilization of capital flows as well as contain money growth within the statutory limit

Civil Non-State Actors in Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding in West Africa

This paper advances the notion of civil non-state actors in peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Using Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire as cases studies, the paper identifies three kinds of civil non-state actors in war-torn countries: international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community-based NGOs, and ad hoc community organizations. In addition, it argues that civil non-state actors play a critical problem-solving role in peacekeeping and peacebuilding and complement the role of state actors. The paper examines the role of civil non-state actors through their dialectical affinity with state actors in the peacekeeping and peacebuilding processes. It further expands the notion of non-state actors in peacekeeping and peacebuilding to encompass community-based NGOs and ad hoc community organizations. Moreover, it points to the positive role of civil non-state actors and the wide range of activities they perform, especially in peace mediation and post-war reconstruction

EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE AND Z-FACTOR ON CASING DESIGN USING KICK TOLERANCE

The appropriate selection of casing shoe depth is an important aspect in the casing design of an oil well. It significantly impact on the well cost and safety during drilling. As the search for oil moves into challenging territories such as deep water, where there is a narrow window between pore pressure and fracture pressure, the determination of casing setting depth using kick tolerance needs to be more robust. The current industry practice for predicting casing setting depth using kick tolerance assumes a constant geothermal gradient and ideal gas behavior in the calculations. The focus of this research is to study the effect of geothermal temperature variations and compressibility (Z) factor on the casing setting depth design process. Such study is important in order to evaluate how these parameters affect the selected depths especially for HP/HT wells. The research method adopted to achieve this aim involves developing an iterative excel macro program for casing setting depth prediction using kick tolerance which takes in to account Z-Factors and temperature gradients variations across subsurface formations. Four cases with different combination of geothermal temperature gradients and Z-Factor are studied to evaluate the effects. The setting depth for each case is predicted by comparing the fracture pressure equivalent density with the pressure generated inside the wellbore during influx circulation. The results from the study shows that variations in geothermal formation gradients and the incorporation of real gas behavior has an impact on the circulation influx volumes and internal pressures generated during well control procedures and hence affects the selection of casing setting depths. The main conclusions from this study are correcting for Z-Factors and varying geothermal gradients gives lower influx volumes during circulation, thereby reducing the risk of fracturing the formation, Z-Factors and varying geothermal gradients have significant effect on the predicted setting depth at high temperatures but little or no effect at low temperatures; accounting for these effects especially in conventional wells makes it possible to drill longer hole section, thereby reducing the casing sizes to be run, hence lowering well cost considerable. This dissertation recommends that these effects be taken into account during the casing design process for safe and cost effective drilling

Determinants of Tax Revenue in Sierra Leone: Application of the ARDL Framework

The aim of this paper is to investigate the determinants of tax revenue in Sierra Leone, over the period 1990Q1 to 2020Q1, within the context of the ARDL estimation procedure. The result from the ARDL Bound test for cointegration suggests that a long-run relationship exists among the variables. The long run analysis indicates that real GDP (Y), openness (Op) and official development assistance (ODA) are the main determinants of tax revenue (TR) in Sierra Leone, with positive coefficients. This result is in tandem with the short run findings, which establishes a positive relationship between tax revenue and its regressors- real GDP and openness. However, the short run result also suggests that inflation has a negative impact on tax revenue. The findings confirm that any short-run disequilibrium to the long-run can be corrected at the 11 percent speed of adjustment quarterly, albeit at a low speed of adjustment. The diagnostic result shows that approximately 75 percent of the variation in the dependent variable is explained by the regressors based on the value of the R-squared. It also confirms that the model is free of serial correlation and heteroscedasticity, whilst the CUSUM test indicates stability of the model coefficients. The policy implication is for government to pursue policies that will enhance economic growth, through investment in growth enhancing sectors including agriculture, health, education, energy and infrastructure development; and ensure a politically stable environment as a recipe for private sector investment

Dollarization in Sierra Leone: Evidence and Some Policy Options

This study aims to empirically investigate the determinants of dollarization in Sierra. It uses quarterly data from 1992Q1 to 2017Q4 and autoregressive distributed lag Bound Testing technique. Both the long and short run results revealed that inflation, exchange rate depreciation, financial deepening and war dummy were the main determinants of dollarization in Sierra Leone during the study period. The error correction term depicts that 53 percent of any disequilibrium in dollarization will be corrected within a year. A key policy recommendation is that policy makers should implement prudent policies that will ensure broader macroeconomic stability (including price stability and exchange rate stability) as a recipe for de-dollarization in Sierra Leone

Inflation and Growth Nexus: An Estimate of the Threshold Level of Inflation in Sierra Leone

This study investigates the relationship between inflation and economic growth, and determines the threshold level of inflation in Sierra Leone, using a non-linear model (quadratic function) with time-series data from 1980 to 2020. The study employs the Ordinary Least Squares estimation technique within the framework of Hendry’s General-to-Specific approach to obtain a parsimonious result. The results of the unit root test confirm that all the variables are stationary in the first difference, i.e. they are integrated of order one or I(1), with an optimal lag length of two (2). The findings confirm the presence of a non-linear relationship in the inflation-growth nexus. The results reveal that the threshold level of inflation (optimal level of inflation) favourable for economic growth is 10.3 per cent. Thus, inflation is growth-enhancing in Sierra Leone when it is below 10.3 per cent, (i.e. ≤ 10.3 per cent). However, inflation above the threshold is detrimental to economic growth. The results also indicate that economic growth is largely influenced by investment, openness and dummy variable for war, with statistically significant coefficients. Specifically, the results confirm that both openness and investment have a positive impact on economic growth, whilst war dummy has a negative effect on economic growth. The results suggest that the regressors explain 86% of the variation in economic growth and the F-stat reveals that the regressors are jointly significant. The policy implication of this study is that the central bank should implement a prudent monetary policy aimed at maintaining inflation below the threshold level of 10.3 per cent. In this regard, the authorities should follow a rule-based approach to monetary policy implementation rather than discretion in order to contain inflation at the threshold level

The Rights of Nature may Improve Water and Sanitation in Sierra Leone

Water resource protection is becoming increasingly important within the nation of Sierra Leone. Concomitantly, on the world stage, attention is drawing to the Rights of Nature as Ecuador, India and New Zealand and various Non-Governmental Organizations pioneer this ancient social construct into law in the twenty-first century. The coincidental emergence of these two issues raises the question: Might the Rights of Nature provide a way to address Sierra Leone’s water concerns?

An experiment in candidate selection

Are ordinary citizens or political party leaders better positioned to select candidates? While the American primary system lets citizens choose, most democracies rely instead on party officials to appoint or nominate candidates. The consequences of these distinct design choices are unclear: while officials are often better informed about candidate qualifications, they may value traits, like party loyalty or willingness to pay for the nomination, at odds with identifying the best performer. We partnered with both major political parties in Sierra Leone to experimentally vary how much say voters have in selecting Parliamentary candidates. Estimates suggest that more democratic procedures increase the likelihood that parties select voters' most preferred candidates and favor candidates with stronger records of public goods provision

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BETA-ACTIN MUTANTS WITH ALTERED BINDING AFFINITES FOR ATP AND ADP

A number of neurodegenerative diseases are accompanied by the formation of cofilin-actin rods in neural cells. These rods can cause synaptic dysfunction and block transport within neurites. The overall goal of this project is to create an optogenetic switch that incorporates both cofilin (an actin-binding protein) and actin for the study of cofilin-actin rod formation in neural cells undergoing oxidative stress. During the course of the work, a protocol has been created to express the protein [beta]-actin. Protein overexpression and purification, circular dichroism, mass spectrometry, and electrophoresis have been utilized to isolate and characterize [beta]-actin. Site-directed mutagenesis has been conducted to create a series of mutants to explore which residues are key for nucleotide binding. A number of challenges related to protein expression and stability of this protein precluded completion of these studies. As a result, we turned to mutants of optogenetic actin to study nucleotide binding in cells. The results from these studies indicate that point mutants in our actin construct, in conjunction with an optogenetic cofilin, can provide insight into the nucleotide binding state of actin under different oxidant concentrations