A glance at key indicators – in terms of growth forecast and stable elections – will project Sierra Leone as a model for a successful post-conflict state. However, a detailed analysis of the country’s socioeconomic trends, its political institutions and the logic and dynamics of violence show a more disturbing picture where Sierra Leone today shares similar conditions with the Sierra Leone before the outbreak of the civil war.

Anger and frustration at the inequalities are again manifesting as violence, in the mining areas, on the streets and in universities and schools, at times manipulated by the very politicians who are supposed to serve and protect citizens. 

In addition, an externally imposed peace agreement that focused on ending the conflict, and disarming the population, has meant there have been few efforts to address any of the lingering animosity between ex-combatants and those who suffered during 11 years of war. Building peace, reconciliation and trust among the populace was a second-order priority.DFI

Allouche, Jeremy

English

IDS OpenDocs

                                                                                                                                
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                 
 
IS IT THE RIGHT TIME FOR THE 
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO EXIT THE 
SIERRA LEONE? 
 
Addressing and Mitigating Violence 
Jeremy Allouche  
(with the collaboration of Cassandra Biggs, Ngolo Katta and James Vincent) 
November 2013 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
IS IT THE RIGHT TIME FOR THE INTERNATIONAL 
COMMUNITY TO EXIT THE SIERRA LEONE? 
Jeremy Allouche 
(with the collaboration of Cassandra Biggs, Ngolo Katta and James Vincent) 
November 2013 
 
This is an Open Access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative 
Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and 
reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are clearly 
credited.  
 
First published by the Institute of Development Studies in November 2013 
© Institute of Development Studies 
 
IDS is a charitable company limited by guarantee and registered in England (No. 877338). 
The IDS programme on Strengthening Evidence-based Policy works across six key 
themes. Each theme works with partner institutions to co-construct policy-relevant 
knowledge and engage in policy-influencing processes. This material has been 
developed under the Addressing and Mitigating Violence theme.  
 
This development of this material has been led by the Institute of Development Studies 
who holds the copyright.  
 
Input was provided by Cassandra Biggs, Ngolo Katta and James Vincent. The authors 
would also like to acknowledge comment, review and feedback on this publication by 
Markus Shultze-Kraft and Jeremy Lind, as well as to thank the Center for Coordination 
of Youth Activities, CCYA-Sierra Leone, in particular Ngolo Katta (National Coordinator) 
for supporting the organisation and holding of the policy validation workshop at  
their offices in Freetown. 
 
The material has been funded by UK aid from the UK Government, however the views 
expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK Government’s official policies. 
 
AG Level 2 Output ID: 35 
1 
 
Executive Summary 
In the eyes of the international community, Sierra Leone is seen as the model for 
successful post-conflict peacebuilding. At the end of 2012, the International Monetary 
Fund (IMF) announced that it had removed Sierra Leone from its list of ‘fragile and 
conflict-affected’ countries, and graduated the country to low-income status. On 
paper, the move reflected Sierra Leone’s more stable political environment, as 
evidenced by largely fair and violence-free elections in November 2012. The success 
of the elections was also highlighted UNIPSIL (United Nations Integrated 
Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone) as a reason to wrap up its mission, which it will 
do by 2014. A glance at key indicators – in terms of growth forecast and stable 
elections – will project Sierra Leone as a model for a successful post-conflict state. 
However, a detailed analysis of the country’s socioeconomic trends, its political 
institutions and the logic and dynamics of violence show a more disturbing picture 
where actually Sierra Leone today shares similar conditions with the Sierra Leone 
before the outbreak of the civil war.  
 
Efforts by the international donor community to decentralise power to the margins, 
both geographically and demographically, have failed. Instead, this focus on the 
institutions of governance has allowed the same elite to maintain power, and at the 
same time, created a new layer of elite to benefit from reforms, natural resources and 
donor funds.  
 
Sierra Leone remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. 
In the decade after the civil war, it remained in the bottom ten of the 180+ countries 
on the Human Development Index – a measure of people’s freedoms and their 
standard of living, focusing on health and levels of education. Over the past two 
years, it has moved up three places, driven by an increase in GDP that is the result 
of royalties from mining the country’s natural resources: diamonds, iron ore, rutile, 
bauxite, and gold. Yet, while Sierra Leone’s GDP has shown significant 
improvements over the last few years (GDP was projected to grow 35.9 per cent in 
2012),1 this improvement has only benefited a narrow layer of elite, at both the 
national and local levels, and failed to trickle down to ordinary citizens. The lack of 
transparency around national resource revenue and the failure of robust government 
oversight on how those revenues are spent, led this year to the suspension of Sierra 
Leone from EITI, the Extractive Industries Transparency Index. 
 
Anger and frustration at the inequalities are again manifesting as violence, in the 
mining areas, on the streets and in universities and schools, at times manipulated by 
the very politicians who are supposed to serve and protect citizens. Many youth 
gangs took part in violence around the 2003 and 2007 elections. Violence has also 
broken out between fans of rival music labels, and between fraternities in schools, 
which are also divided along national political lines and fanned by a political elite 
looking to mobilise a youth wing. With disenfranchised youth feeling disempowered 
and cut off from society, organised crime and gang membership can offer them a 
sense of belonging and purpose. While not on the scale seen during the decade of 
conflict from 1991 to 2002, these new, emerging forms of violence are worryingly 
omnipresent in daily life. At the forefront of this violence are the youth, who feel they 
have again been excluded by the institutions that are supposed to represent them – 
the National Youth Commission and the Ministry of Youth and Sports, both of which 
are run by figures from the country’s political establishment – and in which they have 
little voice. In the 15 years that the international community has been in Sierra Leone, 
                                               
1
 IMF, World Economic Outlook April 2012. 
2 
 
very little has been done to address youth exclusion, one of the grievances 
considered a driver in the conflict. Youth unemployment stands at about 60%, 
compounded by a nascent private sector based almost exclusively on the non-
labour-intensive mining industry and a lack of opportunities for education. 
In addition, an externally imposed peace agreement that focused on ending the 
conflict, and disarming the population, has meant there have been few efforts to 
address any of the lingering animosity between ex-combatants and those who 
suffered during 11 years of war. Building peace, reconciliation and trust among the 
populace was a second-order priority. Many feel a sense of injustice that the crimes 
that were committed across the country were never dealt with. Only 13 people were 
ever tried for war crimes by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, yet hundreds more 
carried out atrocities for which they never had to answer. Ostracised from their 
communities, however, many youth ex-combatants have again been pushed to the 
margins.  
Sierra Leone’s winner-takes-all style of politics has been highlighted by the UN as 
one of the biggest risks to stability in the country. Up until now, it has largely been 
mediated by the international community and while the electoral violence of the 
previous two elections was avoided in 2012, it is unclear if the government can 
maintain that without the support of external forces. 
We therefore make the following recommendations. 
 
Youth employment and empowerment 
Youth employment has been neglected as a policy priority both by the international 
community and the government of Sierra Leone. Youth employment programmes 
focus on providing youth with work opportunities in agriculture in rural areas. While 
this is an important aspect of the country’s development, it will not suit all individuals 
and there have to be opportunities for those who do not want to work in agriculture 
(Sumberg & Okali 2013). Many youth want to remain in the urban areas where they 
have been since the end of the war. More employment should be generated through 
investment in industry, and that means a renewed focus on power generation. The 
Agenda for Prosperity, which is the newly articulated Poverty Reduction Strategy 
Paper for 2013–2018, needs to have clear, robust targets for youth employment, as 
currently its methods for including youth in the economic development of the country 
are ambiguous. At the same time, despite the creation of the National Youth 
Commission, the political space for youth has not opened up and more avenues for 
the youth to express themselves and to realise their potential need to be created so 
that they can be properly involved in governance and in the decision-making process. 
Both youth employment and empowerment are central as these are linked to 
economically motivated violence, which is a substantial problem in Sierra Leone.  
 
Resource extraction and revenue distribution  
Sierra Leone’s expected growth in relation to the mining economy is substantial. 
Land is gaining value and there are now many conflicts in rural areas over land 
rights. More fundamentally, there are many questions around the benefits of mining 
development for the local community. In this respect, the government of Sierra Leone 
should take all the steps necessary to rejoin the Extractive Industry Transparency 
Index (EITI). The EITI Board asked Sierra Leone to undertake four remedial actions 
for the suspension to be lifted, namely: (1) that all relevant companies and 
government entities participate in the reporting process; (2) that the disclosures from 
government entities are based on accounts audited to international standards; (3) 
that the government ensures that all material companies comprehensively disclose 
3 
 
all material payments in accordance with the agreed reporting templates; and finally 
(4) that the government ensures that all government agencies comprehensively 
disclose all material revenues in accordance with the agreed reporting templates. 
These corrective actions could be addressed by publishing a supplementary 2010 
EITI Report, or through the 2011 EITI Report to be published before 31 December 
2013. 
 
Divisive politics 
Sierra Leone’s winner-takes-all politics is causing national divisions that are spilling 
over into schools and onto the street. Building on successful experiences to date, 
there should be more focus on activities that build peace, such as intergroup sports 
activities and peace clubs that reward schools for peaceful term times. Furthermore, 
the divisions between ex-combatants and communities needs to be addressed 
through new initiatives that deal with the reconciliation process. The government of 
Sierra Leone and donors should respond to youth’s call for education as the linchpin 
of their recovery and should make the reconstruction of formal and non-formal 
education systems and the promotion of youth’s livelihoods and entrepreneurship a 
priority. Divisive politics are for the moment framed as a two-sided dispute between 
political parties but there are dangers that the division may become a two-sided 
dispute between the youth and the elderly.  
 
 
In the light of these three challenges that are linked to emerging new forms of 
violence, the government of Sierra Leone and the international community should 
include conflict prevention as a core aid priority as part of UNIPSIL exit strategy and 
donor transition strategies. This focus would entail maintaining the conditions for 
investment in youth employment and youth empowerment, expanding off-farm 
employment and would encourage accountability and transparency mechanisms in 
relation to resource extraction and revenue distribution.   
 


Is it the Right Time for the International Community to Exit Sierra Leone?

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Is it the Right Time for the International Community to Exit Sierra Leone?

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