REPUBLIC
OF SIERRA LEONE
Minister
for Development and Economic Planning
At
the Third United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries
Belgium,
Brussels
May
15, 2001 – Evening Session
Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished delegates,
Sierra Leone is pleased to participate with other nations in this august gathering to firm up a programme of action that seeks to free the people of the Least Developed Countries from endemic deprivation and want.
My delegation wishes to join other speakers to express profound gratitude to the Government and people of Belgium for their warm hospitality extended to us on arrival to this beautiful city.
My delegation also wishes to thank the European Union for hosting this all-important conference and for funding our national preparatory activities, which culminated in a Programme of Action for the development of Sierra Leone.
Mr. Chairman, permit me to further express our appreciation to the conference organizers, the UNCTAD Secretariat, for the support and efficient manner in which it has managed the preparatory activities for the conference.
Mr. Chairman, Sierra Leone has experienced ten years of perhaps the most cruel, inhuman and devastating conflict in recent times in which the national prospects for development have been totally subverted with rapid contraction in income and wealth, decline in health and living standards and a sharp fall in life expectancy.
The 1990s left the nation in great dismal circumstances and intense poverty with many men, women and children having been disabled and maimed. The cost in human suffering and destruction attributable to the war is incalculable. Our physical infrastructure, social and economic, which even in peacetime was inadequate to meet our developmental challenges, has been largely destroyed or now exists only in name.
Distinguished delegates, in spite of all these negatives, Sierra Leone believes there is now light at the end of the tunnel largely as a result of the courage and resilience shown by its people who stood up against tyranny, oppression and savagery to preserve democracy, the rule of law and the right to live in peace. Some Sierra Leoneans paid their lives, some their limbs, most their homes and even with their children, but in the end the will of the people to determine who governs them democratically is winning the day.
Today, the people of Sierra Leone are comforted that throughout this period ECOWAS, the United Nations, the Commonwealth and the international community stood firmly and continue to stand by Sierra Leoneans in their quest for peace. It is in this vein that we applaud the recent stand taken by the Security Council to impose sanctions on the Government of Liberia as a means to stop or contain that Government’s continued support to the RUF and the illegal and immoral trade in Sierra Leone blood diamonds in exchange for arms and ammunition.
Distinguished delegates, the recent agreement signed between the Government of Sierra Leone and the RUF in Abuja, the robust support by the British to the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and the deployment of personnel of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) in areas that were hitherto under the control of the RUF give positive indications that we are about to put this ugly war and its destruction behind us and to start in earnest the rebuilding of our lives and our nation. I am happy to report that the security situation is improving, not as quickly as we would have liked, but nevertheless, at a rate that gives us great hope for the future. We therefore appeal to the wider international community to continue to assist us in sustaining the peace process so that peace and stability, which are prerequisites for sustainable development, can be realized.
Not surprisingly, after twenty years of declaration and a ten-year rebel war, Sierra Leone is still at the bottom of the UNDP human development index. Sierra Leone’s per capita GDP declined from US$ 320 in 1980 to US$ 160 in 1998. Only 30 percent of the country’s population over age 15 is literate. 42 percent of children of school going age (6-12 years) attend primary school. Infant mortality is 170 per 1,000 live births. 286 out of every 1,000 under-five children die before attaining age five. Maternal mortality is among the highest in the world. Only 54 percent of Sierra Leoneans have access to safe drinking water. The statistics above, similar to those of other LDCs, no doubt suggest the need for drastic action that can change the picture. We believe that this gathering provides such opportunity.
Mr. Chairman, in spite of the dismal statistics, the long-term viability of our nation is not in doubt. Sierra Leone is richly endowed with human and natural resources. The country’s potential in Agriculture, Fisheries and Minerals should provide the basis for rapid and sustained development and improvement in living standards. However, the realization of these high expectations poses a formidable challenge.
To face this challenge, Sierra Leone has produced an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper which we insist must be country owned and country-led with priorities determined by Sierra Leoneans and we are now also developing the full PRSP and a 25 year vision for the development of Sierra Leone and its transformation into a strong, prosperous country free of conflict, where Sierra Leoneans can fulfill their potential and participate effectively in the sub-regional and global economies. Our focus is for a more sustained macro-economic growth that goes side by side with an effective poverty reduction programme leading to development built upon a foundation of good governance, respect for the rule of law, promotion of gender equality particularly women, a sound partnership with the private sector and a vibrant civil society. Our main aim therefore is to achieve simultaneously and consistently, the fundamental political, economic and social goals essential for the reduction of poverty, illiteracy and disease within the shortest possible time.
Several critically important areas of needs have been addressed in our programme of action and include: strong and sustained effort to end the civil conflict, rehabilitate the infrastructure, resettle and reintegrate the displaced and resuscitate the traumatized population; achieve food security, increase literacy figures, improve health care facilities and enhance the public and private sector to steer the development process in a path that will ensure increased employment and rising income and productivity on a continuous basis to ensure the social and economic well-being of our people.
Mr. Chairman, the task we have at hand is indeed enormous. During this brutal war, the needs of Sierra Leoneans have not been of a development nature. It has been ten years of grappling with emergencies and the humanitarian needs of displaced persons within Sierra Leone and across the borders, which has continued to overwhelm us. There is need to quickly move from humanitarian to development though a constructive transition from a society dependent on humanitarian agencies to one that is self-reliant and sustainable. We need to reconstruct not only our physical infrastructure but also the minds of Sierra Leoneans after these traumatic years by putting in place reconciliation and confidence building mechanisms, re-enforcing democracy, the rule of law and a just society, and a vigorous investment programme as detailed in the programme of action.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that for the development of Sierra Leone in particular and LDCs in general, there are critical and important tasks we must do ourselves as LDCs, but notwithstanding this, making a significant breakthrough to higher growth in most of our countries requires a significant increase in official development assistance. And to make the utilization of aid more effective and useful, Africa now calls for a fundamental transformation of the aid relationship based on (among others) principles of Africa’s leadership and ownership of visions and goals and strategies for development, stable and predictable long term resource flow, a transformed partnership based on mutual accountability and transparency and a recognition of Africa’s diversity.
For countries like Sierra Leone that maybe engulfed in conflict, emerging from conflict, or post conflict, these countries require different policies, appropriate responses, Different strategies and support to enable them to address their extraordinary circumstances and resume the course of development. Instead of needing less, these countries need more assistance and a more imperative rapid and sustainable exit from debt. Support to countries such as ours should therefore be flexible and more gently and sympathetically treated with regards to debt arrears. We therefore welcome the Post Conflict Fund recently proposed by the World Bank. We also urge the World Bank and IMF to provide the necessary technical assistance and policy support to help advance most of the African Heavily Indebted Poor Countries like Sierra Leone to the decision point for debt relief. The timing of the Third United Nations Conference on The Least Developed Countries coincides with the commencement of the rebuilding of our country. The country’s low income and low levels of domestic savings severely limit the ability to mobilize domestic resources for development.
Moreover, the political and social heavals have made the situation worse. Thus, considerable external assistance is crucial to the realization of the Programme of Action. We wish, therefore, to appeal to our development partners for support and assistance to attain the goals as detailed in our Programme of Action. The rationale for a large amount of foreign assistance is not to keep the country in a perpetual state of dependency, but as an instrument to attain self-reliance by building strong institutions, which are indispensable for realizing the potential embodied in indigenous manpower and natural resources.
Mr. Chairman, the immediate way forward for LDCs, 34 of whom are in Africa, is for concerted efforts by the world community to address the causes of conflict and to provide timely interventions to put out the fires of conflict and stop them from becoming unmanageable. Moreover, the international community must encourage and provide the necessary support to countries of emerging democracies to consolidate such democracies through good governance, respect of human rights and the rigid adherence to the rule of law. Endemic and abject poverty are disincentives to the realization of these goals.
UN-LDC 3 is looking at the position of LDCs after two decades of failed development efforts for most LDCs and worse still two decades of retrogression of LDCs in conflicts. Our situations are of a specialized character and deserve special attention. LDCs are looking forward to a programme of action that will lead to real change in these countries.
I hope the conference would be of great benefit to all Least Developed Countries so that in the next ten years, we will see a drastic reduction in the number of countries classified as LDCs. The lessons of the past twenty years should not be lost but they should be made to bear influence on the success of progress, which should ensure an upward movement of LDCs from the bottom to the middle economies. It is possible if we as LDCs make the resolve and stand up to our responsibilities and if you, our development partners honor the commitments you will be making during and after this conference and if we all agree on monitorable follow up mechanisms.
Distinguished delegates, in conclusion, on behalf of the Government and people of Sierra Leone, I wish to sincerely thank all friendly countries especially member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Great Britain, the United States of America, Germany, France and Canada, other multi-lateral agencies especially the European Union, the United Nations and its humanitarian agencies not forgetting the World Bank/IMF for their invaluable support and contributions that have helped to sustain Sierra Leone during 10 years of brutal war.
I thank you all with a pledge that Sierra Leone is about to rise again from the ashes of war and we need our development partner’s support to jump-start the process.
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