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Overcoming poverty can bring peace to Sierra Leone- Zoellick
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot
Overcoming poverty in Sierra Leone will be important for
consolidating its peace because conflict had inflicted a
heavy toll on infrastructure, basic services and traditional
job-generating sectors like agriculture and fisheries, said
World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick.
“I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about Sierra
Leone’s work on agriculture, feeder roads, youth employment
and energy provision as progress in these areas will be
important in overcoming poverty and supporting peace” said
Zoellick, after meeting here with Sierra Leone President
Ernest Koroma and his cabinet.
On the first leg an eight-day visit to Africa that will also
take him to Cote d’Ivoire and Ethiopia, Zoellick voiced the
Bank's support for the planned launch in April of free
access to health care for children and pregnant and
lactating mothers. “Free access to health care for children
and pregnant and lactating women is an important step in
addressing the high child and maternal mortality in the
country,” Zoellick said.
He told reporters during his end-of-visit press conference
that his trip to Sierra Leone had been to discuss with
Koroma and his cabinet the acceleration of reforms,
including public sector reform, with governance improvements
and capacity building at their heart.
Like Rwanda and Mozambique, Sierra Leone’s transition from
emergency assistance to post-conflict reconstruction
demonstrates the possibilities for countries to recover from
conflict with investment and well-targeted development
assistance that focuses on stimulating private sector-led
growth, and on strengthening institutions that are more
accountable to citizens and are able to improve the lives of
the poor.
Zoellick pledged the World Bank’s support for expanding
transparency and accountability when he met representatives
of Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission, the donor
community, the private sector and civil society. This should
improve good governance of the natural resources sector,
including newfound oil, to prevent a relapse into conflict
fueled by sales of minerals. He also pledged Bank support so
that the poor can benefit from these new resources.
After seeing the Bumbuna 1 Hydroelectric Project by
helicopter, the World Bank President praised donor
cooperation on the project, and said the World Bank would
work with others to increase access to electricity in the
country, where only five percent of the population is on the
grid. The lack of power is a major impediment to Sierra
Leone’s economic growth, particularly in the industrial and
service sectors. The completion of the first phase of the
project brought a reliable supply of power to Sierra Leone
in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner,
reducing reliance on a multitude of expensive and polluting
private generators.
Future hydropower generation on a large scale, under Bumbuna
2, could see electricity supplied to neighboring countries,
generating export earnings for Sierra Leone, and fostering
regional integration.
“Large-scale energy projects, such as Bumbuna, can be
complemented by programs to assist the productivity of
small-scale agriculture, which is the source of livelihood
for most Sierra Leoneans,” Zoellick said. During a visit to
Kasokra Village near Bumbuna, Zoellick saw swamp rice
cultivation, the agricultural mainstay of the country,
supported by the safeguards and resettlement activities of
the Bumbuna Project that helped protect biodiversity,
agricultural productivity and food security for nearby
subsistence farmers.
Employing two-thirds of Sierra Leone’s labor force and
accounting for 50 percent of its economy, agriculture is a
priority for the government, especially since the global
food crisis. Agricultural was badly hit during the civil
war. Rice production, for example, fell by more than 50
percent.
Zoellick left Sierra Leone for Cote d’Ivoire, the second
stop of his three-nation African visit. He was accompanied
by the World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region,
Obiageli Ezekwesili. From Cote d’Ivoire, he will travel to
Ethiopia for the third and final stage of his visit.
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