Chapter 2 National Circumstances

2.1 Introduction

Climate vulnerability is a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity (McCarthy et al. 2001). Vulnerability to climate change is structured by economic, social, geographic, demographic, cultural, institutional, governance and environmental factors (IPCC 2012). Vulnerability to climate risks is shaped by multiple factors on the ground. This includes social inequality, unequal access to resources, poverty, poor infrastructure, lack of representation, lack of social networks, and inadequate systems of social security, early warning, and planning (Yohe and Tol 2002; Brooks, Adger, and Kelly 2005; Ribot 2009). This chapter presents the underlying conditions in the country that shape sensitivity and adaptive capacity including its geography and the socio-economic context.

2.2 Geography

Sierra Leone is located in the south-western part of West Africa. It sits between latitudes 7N and 10N of the equator and between longitude 10W and 13W of the Prime Meridian. The country has a total area of 71,740 sq. km, divided into a land area of 71,620 sq. km and water of 120 sq. km. The country is divided into four main ecological regions: coastal mangroves, the wooded hill country, an upland plateau, and the eastern mountains. Freetown is the capital. Sierra Leone is divided into four geographical or administrative regions: the Northern Province, Eastern Province, Southern Province and the Western Area. Sierra Leone has high levels of biodiversity with lowland rainforests, mountain forests, freshwater swamps, coastal ecosystems, and marine ecosystems. The coastline covers 506 km and includes sandy beaches, cliffs, lagoons, estuaries, mudflats, creeks, bays, and mangrove swamps. There are about 105,200 ha of mangroves along this coastline (WABiCC 2019). There are eight major river systems, the Great Scarcies, Little Scarcies, Rokel/Seli, Bankasoka, Jong, Sewa, Moa, and Mano. The highest peak on the Loma Mountains is Bintumani, which rises to 1945 m while Sankan Biriwa in the Tingi Hills rises to 805m (Government of Sierra Leone 2015a).

Source: (UN 2014)

2.3 Socio-economic Context

Sierra Leone has had an unstable modern history marked by a civil war from 1991-2002 and the two-year Ebola crisis (2014-2016). These events and political instability have led to severe socio-economic repercussions and contributed to the underlying vulnerabilities which persist today.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa and globally, with a GDP per capita of US$499 in 2017. It ranked 182 out of 188 countries on the United Nations 2020 Human Development Index, below the average for countries with similar GDP per capita (UNDP 2020a). The overall poverty rate in Sierra Leone is 57 percent, with 10.8 percent of the population living in extreme poverty (Government of Sierra Leone 2019). Poverty rates are concentrated in rural areas where 72.4% live in poverty. In Freetown, poverty is at 18.5 percent. Poverty is spatial as the North is the poorest, followed by the South and the East. The Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA 2015) reported that 49% (3,475,135.37) of people in Sierra Leone are food insecure, of which the majority are poor smallholder farmers that are living in the rural areas of the country (Government of Sierra Leone 2018).
The population is around 7.4 million (2018). The population growth rate has increased rapidly from 1.8 percent between 1985 and 2004 to 3.2 percent between 2004 and 2015. This has led to 40 percent increase from about 5 million in 2004 to more than 7 million today. At the current rate, the population will reach 10 million people by 2026 (Government of Sierra Leone 2019). Forty percent of Sierra Leone’s population are youth. There is high unemployment among low and semi-skilled youth most of whom were unable to complete their education due to the civil war.

Sierra Leone’s economy is small and undiversified. Sierra Leone has a mixed economic system with prominent state enterprises and a private sector. The major sectors of the Sierra Leone’s economy are minerals (diamonds, iron ore, rutile, bauxite), fisheries, tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing. The economy has grown since the end of the civil war driven by agriculture and then by mining.

There were two recent economic shocks, the Ebola epidemic and the collapse of iron ore commodity prices, which lead to shrinking GDP growth. Since then, economic growth has fluctuated. Real GDP growth was weak in 2018 at 3.5% but improved slightly to an estimated 5.0% in 2019, driven by agriculture and services, and in the first half of 2019 by extractives (AfDB 2019).

Sierra Leone is especially vulnerable to external shocks. Sierra Leone does not have any control over the price of its major imported goods, such as rice and fuel, which account for over 50 percent of total import value. Additionally, its dependence on primary commodity exports makes it more susceptible. The African Development Bank projects that international iron ore prices will is projected to decrease from $77.70 per dry metric ton in 2019 to $72.40 in 2022, which is more evidence for the need for economic diversification away from extractive industries (African Development Bank 2019). Covid-19 has added additional shocks and GDP growth is expected to fall to 1.7%. This is primarily due to the decline in commodity prices and depressed trade, FDI inflows, tourism revenue following travel restrictions and declines in remittances.

Agriculture plays a crucial role in ensuring food security, poverty reduction and improving public health. Agriculture, a women dominated sector, employs more than half of the country’s formal and informal workforce, and accounts for about half of GDP (Government of Sierra Leone 2019). Although 75 percent of its land is arable, only about 10 percent is cultivated, mainly for food crops such as rice, cassava, yams, and other root crops (Government of Sierra Leone 2018). Farmers, however, have limited access to improved varieties of seeds, equipment and fertilizers. Additionally, farming is mostly rainfed, making it more vulnerable to climate impacts (Government of Sierra Leone 2018). Fisheries activities which currently contribute about 10% of GDP, is a primary livelihood for 500,000 people and a main source of animal protein for over 80% of the population. Additionally, fish processing and marketing is a sector led primarily by women, similar to agriculture, making women’s work more climate sensitive (Government of Sierra Leone 2018).

2.4 Urbanization and Infrastructure

According to the African Development Bank, Sierra Leone ranked 46 out of 54 countries on the Bank’s Africa Infrastructure Development Index in 2020 (AfDB 2020). This points to the significant infrastructure investment needed across all sectors including water and sanitation, health, energy, transport, and ICT. The poor infrastructural landscape in Sierra Leone has had a tremendously negative impact on economic diversification, health and livelihoods. Infrastructure is a centerpiece of the Medium-Term National Development Plan and key to Sierra Leone’s long-term development goals of becoming a middle-income country.

Access to affordable and reliable electricity is essential for human development. Currently, this is severely limited in the country. Biomass from wood and charcoal is the source of energy for 80% of the population with related significant environmental and public health impacts such as deforestation and respiratory illnesses. As Sierra Leone addresses its climate goals in an integrated way, renewable and reliable energy sources are an essential component.

Many of the major causes of death and disability in Sierra Leone can be traced to challenges with environmental health and sanitation. Most of the country’s population obtain water from unsafe open water sources and waterborne diseases are very common. There is also a dearth of sanitation facilities and almost 30% of the rural population practices open defecation. Sanitation is far below the reasonable SDG target of 66% for the country and the budget allocation for the sector is less than .02 percent of GDP (Government of Sierra Leone 2019).
Infrastructure issues are compounded as more people move into urban centers. In Sierra Leone, urbanization has been accelerating since the civil war. The share of the population living in urban areas almost doubled from 21% in 1967 to almost 40% in 2015, with a high concentration in the capital Freetown, which has grown to a population of more than 1 million. This growth is now rapidly increasing. From 2004 to 2015 the population has increased 43% from approximately 5 million to approximately 7 million (Statistics Sierra Leone 2016). Urbanization has not been accompanied by sufficient resources to plan and manage this fast growth and cities have lacked the financing to make the necessary investments to cope with the accelerated demand for infrastructure and services. This has climate risk implications as this can increase vulnerability for an already vulnerable population especially those in informal settlements or working in the informal sector.
## Gender Issues

Women are 51% of the population and suffer from gender inequality and discrimination. Sierra Leone historically stands in the bottom ten of the Gender Development Index (UNDP 2020b). Inequalities are apparent in terms of literacy rates, per capita GDP, access to land, and legal protection. Increased poverty among women in Sierra Leone results from a combination of factors, which include: limited skills and knowledge; unfriendly market structures that concentrate women in lower paying and time-consuming work and restrict their access to capital and credit; traditional family structures perpetuating gender inequality through patriarchal norms of property ownership and inheritance; discrimination in the public domain; weak and unequal trade and economic patterns (USAID 2019).

Over the past decade, the government has developed and enacted a range of national laws, policies, and strategies to address gender inequalities. This included the passage of the three ‘gender justice’ laws’, which respectively address domestic violence, improve women’s access to land through inheritance, and strengthen women’s rights in marriage and divorce through a registration process. Several government entities have also have been established to support gender equality including the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs; the Human Rights Commission; the Family Support Unit in the Sierra Leone Police; and the Legal Aid Board. This institutional development however, has been insufficient. For example, women occupy less than 20 percent of elected positions although the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Bill, which establishes a minimum of 30 percent representation of women in governance at all levels. The Medium-Term Development Plan seeks to address this issue and includes empowering women as a key focus including to support implementation of current legislation.

2.5 Environmental Issues

Unregulated development has intensified overexploitation of land and marine environments which has resulted in substantial environmental degradation, loss of habitat and biodiversity, air and water pollution and their related social and public health impacts. In 2017, the Forestry Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) calculated that less than five percent of the country’s original cover in 1990 was still intact (Office of the Chief Minister GoSL 2019). This has continued to decrease at a rate of around 100,000 hectares every year, mainly through large-scale and subsistence agriculture, commercial logging and logging for charcoal for energy (Office of the Chief Minister GoSL 2019). Mining operations have also contributed to the rates of deforestation, land degradation and destruction of farmlands, inadequate availability of clean water, poor air quality and noise pollution (Mabey et al. 2020). There are 48 forest reserves and conservation areas in Sierra Leone, representing about 4 percent of the land area (180,250 hectares), although most of them are inadequately protected and managed.

Mangrove coverage in Sierra Leone is estimated to have decreased by approximately 25% since 1990 (WABiCC 2017). About 300,000 ha of wetlands and marine ecosystems are mangrove forests that are a critical source of livelihoods and ecological support along the coastal plains of the Western Area and other riverine areas across the country. Coastal ecosystems have been severely threatened by pollution, physical alteration and destruction of habitats, over-exploitation of resources, uncontrolled development, coastal erosion and climate change (EPA-SL 2015). Environmental issues are due to a host of challenges including a weak regulatory and legal framework, policy incoherence, conflicting government mandates, low management capacity, inadequate coordination, limited public awareness and education, limited data and information and finance.