Flechas hacia la nada: SIERRA LEONE : "Lionesse Mountain"

Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa . It is bordered by Guinea on the north and Liberia on the south, with the Atlantic Ocean on the west. The name Sierra Leone was adapted from the Portuguese name for the country: Serra Leoa. The literal meaning is "Lionesse Mountain." During the 1700s Sierra Leone was an important centre of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The capital Freetown Freetown was founded in 1792 by the Sierra Leone Company as a home for Black Britons who had fought for the British in the American Revolutionay War .

Sierra Leone is a nice country with beautiful beaches and landscapes

In 1808, Freetown became a British Crown Colony , and in 1896, the interior of the country became a British Protectorate . The Crown Colony and Protectorate joined and gained independence in 1961 . From 1991 to 2000, the country suffered greatly under a devastating civil war. To end the civil war, UN and British forces disarmed 17,000 militia and rebels, in the largest UN peacekeeping act of the decade. The average life span of a Sierra Leonean is 38 years for men and 42 years for women.

Sierra Leone is the worst nation in the world for childbirth, having the highest Ratio (MMR), or risk of maternal death, of any country. The MMR of Sierra Leone, according to a report from the World Health Organization in the year 2000, is 2,000 maternal deaths per live 100,000 births. The extremely high MMR is principally due to a lack of capacity to deal with obstetric complications such as haemorrhage, obstructed labour, ectoptic gestation, puerperal sepsis, and complications caused by unsafe abortion. Those situations were aggravated by the rebellion and the detrimental effects on distribution of reproductive health services due to the massive displacement of people, destruction of medical infrastructure and hospital equipment, rural inaccessibility, poor and disadvantageous accessibility to basic medical service.

The government is slowly reestablishing its authority after the 1991 to 2002 civil war that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than 2 million people (about one-third of the population). (war)The last UN peacekeepers withdrew in December 2005, leaving full responsibility for security with domestic forces, but a new civilian UN office remains to support the government. Mounting tensions related to planned 2007 elections, deteriorating political and economic conditions in Guinea, and the tenuous security situation in neighboring Liberia may present challenges to continuing progress in Sierra Leone's stability.

Sierra Leone is an extremely poor nation with tremendous inequality in income distribution. It has the lowest average income in the world. It does have substantial mineral l and fishery resources and agricultural potential. However, the economic and social infrastructure is not well developed, and serious social disorders continue to hamper economic development, following an 11-year civil war. About two-thirds of the working-age population engages in subsistence agriculture. Manufacturing consists mainly of the processing of raw materials and of light manufacturing for the domestic market."

Economic development has always been hampered by an overdependence on mineral exploitation. Successive governments and the population as a whole have always believed that "diamonds and gold" are sufficient generators of foreign currency earnings and lure for investment. As a result large scale agriculture of commodity products, industrial development and sustainable investments have been neglected by governments. The economy could thus be described as one which is "exploitative" and based on the extraction of unsustainable resources or non reusable assets.

There are plans to reopen bauxite and rutile mines shut down during the conflict. The major source of hard currency consists of the mining of diamonds . The fate of the economy depends upon the maintenance of domestic peace and the continued receipt of substantial aid from abroad.

But beyond these purely economic factors, Sierra Leone also suffers from endemic official corruption. Government officials in successive governments have shown themselves more interested in lining their own pockets than improving the lives of average Sierra Leoneans. This is Sierra Leone's principal barrier to development.

If you are interesting in the Situation of Sierra Leona you can read the blog of the missionary Jose Luis Garayoa (in spanish)