Sierra Leone

About

Since 2002, when the ten-year civil war came to an end, Sierra Leone has experienced wide fluctuations in GDP, a negative trade balance, and a fiscal deficit. Established in 2008, IGC Sierra Leone has worked with the local and national government to confront Sierra Leone’s challenges to growth.

We have worked on trade, governance, and growth in important sectors such as agriculture, energy, and mining. Early projects included collaborating on strategy for accessing the US market through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), collating research on the economic impacts of Ebola, and, more recently, supporting Freetown City Council to increase own-source revenues through reforms to property tax and business licensing. We continue to work on areas including tax policy, coordinating state agencies, agricultural firm productivity, energy access, small-scale mining and its impact on the environment.

IGC Sierra Leone has a close working relationship with the Ministries of: Finance; Planning and Economic Development; Energy; Agriculture and Forestry, as well as Trade and Industry, Freetown City Council, Kenema City Council, Kono District Council, and several government departments and agencies. In these relationships, we have responded to research demands by engaging international experts and researchers to produce cutting-edge policy research.