Sierra Leone
Peace and hope have replaced war and despair in Sierra Leone and life is gradually returning to normal

AHMAD TEJAN KABBAH President of Sierra Leone

The Republic of Sierra Leone has two major assets as it rebuilds itself after more than a decade of civil war—democracy and diamonds.
Peaceful and orderly presidential and parliamentary elections held in May are widely regarded as a milestone in this West African nation’s journey back to peace and normality. Taking the oath of office for the second time following a landslide victory for himself and his Sierra Leone People's Party, President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah called for a “new coalition for national development.”

Democracy is entrenched and reconstruction under way

With more than 70 percent of the vote, Dr. Kabbah has a rock solid mandate to consolidate the peace and undertake the challenging task of rebuilding his country after the years of conflict. According to the President, the elections demonstrated the people’s will for peace and their determination to achieve it. “Democracy is now fully entrenched in our society,” he says. The nation has demonstrated “a real will to turn the page.”
Dr. Kabbah knows, however, that his government’s commitment to democratic principles has to be translated into substantive action in the form of programs and projects that bring results. His declared aim is to bring about a significant improvement in the overall quality of life for all Sierra Leoneans.

LANDMARK Planted by resettled slaves when Freetown was founded, the Cotton Tree is a treasured symbol of the capital city

Much needs to be done to make this possible. The nation is rich in resources and was once prosperous, but the war destroy-ed mines, factories and essential services.
In July, Sierra Leone was for the second consecutive year ranked lowest among 173 countries in terms of human development by the United Nations on the basis of such factors as education, life expectancy and per capita income.
Now, however, reconstruction is underway and improvements are beginning to show as peace and stability become more and more effective. Both the UN and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have praised the “remarkable progress” being made.

At the top of Dr. Kabbah’s action list is the need to enable the nation to feed itself. Agriculture was a major casualty of the war with large-scale displacements of farm labor seriously affecting the production of food crops as well as export earners such as timber, coffee and oil palm products. Once an exporter of rice, Sierra Leone now depends on rice imports. All sectors of the economy are open to foreign investment and, in addition to agriculture, fisheries, mining and tourism have huge potential for development.

For more than half a century the leading source of the country’s foreign exchange has been diamonds, accounting for 80-90 percent of export earnings in recent years. But diamonds have proved both a blessing and a curse. Illicit production and smuggling funded arms proliferation and fuelled the civil war.
Today a UN-mandated diamond export certification scheme is in force and the Security Council has commended the government’s efforts to monitor the trade to prevent diamonds from becoming a future source of conflict.
Legal diamond exports from the country for July amounted to almost $5 million, the highest level since the introduction of the certification scheme two years ago. Up to September, Sierra Leone had exported about $25 million in diamonds this year, as compared to $26 million for all of 2001.
Constitutional and legal reforms are planned and Dr. Kabbah has personally committed himself to the fight against corruption in both public and private sectors.

MOMODU KOROMA Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation

“No matter how hard we try to improve the quality of our lives, and no matter how rigorously we pursue prudent fiscal and monetary policies, our objectives can never be achieved if they are not entrenched within a solid framework of democratic practices and good governance,” he says.
Sierra Leone is a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and, together with Liberia and Guinea, formed the Mano River Union (MRU) customs union, which aims to promote regional economic integration. It is also involved in moves to achieve the, as yet elusive, regional stability that would foster economic development for itself and its neighbors.

“Consolidation of the peace and the process of reconstructing our country are the two main challenges,” says Momodu Koroma, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
“We have all the natural resources and we want people to come and help us to exploit them so that we become partners in development. We are known to be a peace-loving people. Our doors were open to everybody until the war and we want to regain that image.”