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Sierra Leone is located in West Africa, nudged between Guinea and Liberia. Natural in beauty, the country has a stunning mountainous coastline to the south and west as well as thick rain forest and swamps in the interior. With a warm tropical climate, the country has an average temperature of 25ºC with two distinct seasons; the wet season (May to October) and the dry season (November to April).
Sierra Leone is rich in natural and mineral resources including Diamonds, Bauxite, Rutile, Iron and Gold. These mineral exports account for more than 70% of the country’s total foreign exchange earnings and have the potential of bringing much wealth to this small nation of five million residents. Yet today the country remains painfully poor, placed second from the bottom in the UNDP Human Development Report 2006 with most of the population dependent on subsistence farming and fishing. Today the average GDP per capita is a mere USD 142.
Most people know Sierra Leone best for its decade long bloody civil war. Launched by former army corporal Foday Sankoh and his rebel group Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the conflict tore the nation a part. Spurred by acute poverty, rampant corruption, soaring unemployment, gross public financial mismanagement, inadequate distribution of the country’s natural resources, amongst other things, the war saw some 50,000 people dead and many more amputated, raped, traumatized and displaced. With the help of the former colonial power Britain and a United Nations peacekeeping, Sierra Leone declared peace in 2002. The country is now faced with the massive task of reconstruction.
Yet Sierra Leone is not all about civil war and poverty. Abundant in natural resources with beautiful scenery and friendly, resilient people, it has much to offer citizens and foreigners alike, and with the nation holding tightly to peace, Sierra Leone looks set to be an African success story.
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