Sierra Leone

IGC Sierra Leone partners with policymakers and other stakeholders to conduct frontier research in areas of importance to the government and its partners. Our research has been conducted in trade, governance, access to energy, and agricultural firms and will also focus on areas including tax policy, coordinating state agencies, and small-scale mining and green growth.

Featured content

Simplifying property tax administration in Africa: Piloting a points-based valuation in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Kevin Grieco, Abou Bakarr Kamara, Niccolò Meriggi, Julian Michel, Wilson Prichard, Graeme Stewart-Wilson

Policy brief

The impact of information on voter knowledge and engagement: Evidence from the 2012 elections in Sierra Leone

Kelly Bidwell, Rachel Glennerster, Katherine E Casey

Project

The underlying causes of fragility and instability in Sierra Leone

24 July 2018 Freetown, Sierra Leone

Past Event

Roads to trade: The welfare effects of connecting mines versus cities

Steven Poelhekke, Roberto Bonfatti

Project

An assessment of the agricultural cross border trade between Sierra Leone and her neighbours (Guinea and Liberia)

Isata Mahoi, Samuel Jibao, James Fomba Sandy

Project

About

Since the end of a ten-year conflict in 2002, Sierra Leone has experienced wide fluctuations in GDP, a negative trade balance, and fiscal deficit. Since 2008, The IGC Sierra Leone country programme has worked with local and national government to work on trade, governance, and growth in important sectors such as agriculture, energy, and mining. Projects include 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 supporting Freetown City Council to increase own-source revenues through reforms to property tax and business licensing. Going forward, the IGC aims to continue to work on areas including tax policy, coordinating state agencies, agricultural firm productivity, energy access, small-scale mining and their interactions with the environment.

The country office 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, the IGC has responded to research demands by engaging international experts and researchers to produce cutting-edge policy research.