118/119 Biodiversity and Tropical Forest Assessment for Sierra Leone

ANALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT OF USAID/SIERRA LEONE STRATEGY
Sierra Leone suffered from decades of poor governance that eventually led to an intense and
violent civil war in the 1990s. This civil conflict only recently concluded in 2002. United
Nations peacekeeping forces were a visible presence in Sierra Leone until 2005. Multiple
international donors (UN, USAID, and DFID, which has the largest presence) currently operate
programs in Sierra Leone.
While the current peace and stability are tenuous, Sierra Leone is on the road to recovery.
Interviews with representatives of the international community indicated that Sierra Leone is in a
period of transition from strict peacekeeping and stability efforts to more general development
goals focused primarily on governance and infrastructure.
USAID/Sierra Leone is essentially part of the USAID/Guinea mission. Sierra Leone at this point
is the only country left in the West Africa region that is “twinned” with another bi-lateral
country. Due to this relationship, USAID Guinea has some influence as to how USAID/Sierra
Leone activities are programmed and managed. As such, future programming will need to
continue to be coordinated with USAID/Guinea. This synergy could be utilized to promote any
transboundary initiatives. It is also important to note that USAID/Sierra Leone is physically
located within the US Embassy, which has led to past collaboration between the USAID and the
Embassy (such as use of Department of Defense funds, for example).
According to USAID/Sierra Leone’s 2006 Strategy Statement, the primary U.S. interest in Sierra
Leone is the consolidation of peace, stability, and security in the country, and in its neighboring
countries, specifically the two other members of the Mano River Union (Liberia and Guinea). In
keeping with the State-USAID Joint Strategic Plan, continued investment in Sierra Leone
through development assistance will also demonstrate the international community’s
commitment to address the challenge of failed states in Africa.
The government of Sierra Leone also recognizes the need for foreign investment as a means to
improve the country’s economy and generate growth and employment. Near-term efforts are
focused on revitalizing mining (gold, diamond, platinum, rutile, bauxite), agriculture, fisheries,
and tourism. In keeping with this focus, USAID’s programs have targeted good governance in
the diamond and gold mining and agriculture sectors over the past five years. Those industries
have close ties to environmental impacts (and thus biodiversity conservation), which mandates
that any programs focused on extractive industries or land use incorporate objectives that will
minimize impacts and thus conserve biodiversity and tropical forests. To date, very little
emphasis has been placed on natural resource management programming from the international
community, which leaves an opportunity for USAID promote biodiversity conservation and
related NRM activities.
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE AND ELEMENTS
While the United States government acknowledges the need for continued investment, the
recently released FY 2008 Congressional Budget Justification for Sierra Leone shows a marked
decrease (almost 50 percent) in requested funds for 2008 in comparison with the 2006 and
continuing resolution 2007 budgets. Historically, however, USAID’s financial contribution to
Sierra Leone has always been heavily outweighed by the rest of the donor community. USAID/
SIERRA LEONE BIODIVERSITY AND TROPICAL FOREST ASSESSMENT 34