Rebuilding Sierra Leone in the aftermath of Ebola

      Photo credit: Wikipedia

Prior to the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone last year, the nation's economy was said to be amongst the fastest growing globally. In actual fact, the economist ranked it number four.


The nation with a population of about 6 million is ironically one of the world's poorest nation. About 70% of the people are said to be poor, despite the abundance of natural resources within the nation. Diamond, bauxite, rutile, iron, limonite and gold are some of Mother Nature's blessings in the region.
The largest iron deposit in Africa and the third largest globally is located in Sierra Leone.
The nation relies mainly on mining as a source of economic power.
The mining industry has had to be shut down as a result of the Ebola crisis.

Since attaining independence in 1961 and becoming a republic in 1971 the nation has gone through several socio economic down times which can be attributed to poor leadership, governmental corruption and election related violence. There also was an 11 year period of civil unrest and war between 1991 and 2002.
This war which could be tagged a "diamond war," contributed to the destabilization of an already fragile economy.

12 years after the war, as the nation finally began to regain its footing, tragedy struck again as the Ebola crisis began, killing over 3500 people and about 8 percent of the nation's doctors.
The Educational sector which had gradually started taking shape before this most recent crisis; with more girls attending school took a major hit and is currently struggling to get back on track.

It seems that the nation would have to begin the rebuilding of the health and educational sectors as well as the economy all over again.





      Photo credit: Wikipedia

In a statement by President Koroma on the 15th of April 2015 at the White House in Washington DC his government will be focussing on
- re opening of schools
- re building of the health sector as well as training of more doctors and nurses
- social protection programs for Ebola survivors and those who lost family members to the virus
- rebuilding of the economy.

The rebuilding of the economy is a big task, businesses across the country have to re open and especially the mining industry.
He made an appeal to world leaders to assist in these efforts and the three affected West African presidents asked for a debt relief of over $ 3 billion.