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Old habits die hard: aid and accountability in Sierra Leone

18 January 2008

Sierra Leone is very dependent on aid with nearly one half of the government budget being financed by international grants and loans. This fact, coupled with weak government structures, are among the reasons why Sierra Leone has not moved forwards more quickly in implementing more efficient and effective aid modalities.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world and the country is heavily dependent on external aid to try and meet the most basic survival needs of the population. Much of this aid has been directed to rebuilding the country and government structures after a devastating civil war. Donors and the Sierra Leonean government have signed up to international commitments to make aid more effective for responding to the basic rights of poor people.

Donors are funding approximately 265 different aid projects in Sierra Leone. Many of these projects are implemented without the government being aware of them. Parallel governance structures are regularly established – exam­ples include the Decentralisation Secretariat, the HIV/AIDs secretariat, and the Governance Reform Secretariat.

Some donors – DFID, the European Commission, the World Bank and the African Development Bank – provide more than a quarter of their aid to Sierra Leone through budget support. By its nature this avoids creating parallel systems. But the report shows that budget support to Sierra Leone also comes laden with conditions, opening up the heart of the government to donor influence. The government must implement complicated policy reforms and achieve certain results (e.g. distribution of a certain number of bed nets to the population). Conditions are decided upon by donors who then present their proposal to the government, whose main room for negotiation lies with how ambitious the condition may be, not with whether the condi­tion is an appropriate priority for the government that year.

Donors are reluctant to relinquish control over allocation of aid resources and the policy agenda. A chicken and egg situation exists with a lack of trust between the government and the donors. Meanwhile Sierra Leonean citizens and civil society organisations are largely sidelined from any discussions about aid decisions in the country.  

Further case studies in this series (on Cambodia, Honduras, Mali, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Niger), coordinated by Eurodad in collaboration with several member organisations, will be published soon. They will also be summarised in an overview report available at the end of March. Eurodad and its collaborators will actively disseminate these to ensure their fresh evidence on aid effectiveness contributes to a constructive debate on aid before the Accra High Level Forum in September.

Old habits die hard: aid and accountability in Sierra Leone : 687 Kb

Analytical Framework : 102 Kb