Economic & Geopolitical History of Sierra Leone (Part 1)
Diamonds are Forever
Sierra Leone is an English speaking country of ~9 million people. Sierra Leone is home to various tribes like the Mende in the East & South, along with the Temne, Loko, & Limba in the North. There’s also a minority of Lebanese Arabs. 75% are Muslim, 22% Christian, and 3% are other. The majority of people are employed in subsistence farming, fishing, and/or artisanal/small scale mining. The country is around the size of West Virginia, and it was named “Serra Leoa” (Lion Mountains) by Portuguese explorers in the 15th century, after looking at the mountains around modern day Freetown.
Sierra Leone is classified by the World Bank as a low-income country and currency depreciation & inflation has eroded real income gains throughout the decades, due to the rampage of the global commodity price bust from the 1980s to 2000s. The commodity bust kickstarted the two decade long African debt crisis, and Sierra Leone’s issues continued with the decade long civil war and Ebola outbreak. Before Sierra Leone’s currency redenomination in July 2022, the Leone depreciated significantly after the Ebola outbreak: from roughly 4000 Leone to 1 dollar on the official exchange rate in 2016 to 11,000 Leone to 1 dollar by July 2022! Since Sierra Leone imports 80% of its food and also imports petrol, the exploding costs of essential goods have eroded Sierra Leonian’s living standards when you express their incomes in USD and adjusted for inflation:
Even compared to Sierra Leone’s neighbors, which are also developing countries, Sierra Leone still has some catching up to do:
As a result of Sierra Leone’s poverty, Sierra Leone is flushed with official development assistance (ODA) aid. In the 2021 fiscal year, Sierra’s Leone’s government budget was $939M. Nearly 40% of Sierra Leone’s government budget is international grants & aid. Below you will see Sierra Leone’s government revenue, segmenting internal revenue generation from grants in Leonean currency:
Health
Despite the poverty issues in Sierra Leone, since independence, the government has massively improved health outcomes such as life expectancy(34 to 60 years), decreased deaths from Malaria, respiratory infections, & tuberculosis by 50%, and reduced infant morality rates (244 deaths per 1000 births to 20 deaths per 1000 births).
Energy
Energy is unreliable in Sierra Leone with frequent power cuts. Only a quarter of the population has access to consistent electricity. Many businesses and people with means rely on generators. Sierra Leone generates less reliable power per person compared to most of West Africa. Solar energy and hydroelectric power from the Bumbuna Dam generates electricity for the people, but both hydroelectric and solar have not reached their full potential. Most of Sierra Leone’s energy consumption is sourced from biomass (fuelwood) then the rest of the energy comes from imported petroleum products. Below you’ll see Sierra Leone’s domestic electricity generation in electricity generated per person:
Agriculture
Sierra Leone just recently increased its farming productivity (tonnes of food made per hectare) to exceed the African average, but it still needs to graduate from the UN classification of “Low Income Food Deficit Country”.
The low food productivity exists with fruits and veggies as well. Here is Sierra Leone and its neighbor’s fruit yield compared to its neighbors.
In terms of fertilizer use per capita, the average Sierra Leonean farmer uses 0.93 kg of fertilizer, meanwhile the average farmer in a low income country utilizes almost 4x the number of fertilizer. In other words, many Sierra Leoneans have land but no seeds or fertilizer to invest in the land. It’s like having a car with no fuel or a rental property with no tenants.
80% of Sierra Leone’s food is imported, draining Sierra Leone’s foreign currency, yet the country has 5.4M hectares of arable land, most of which is uncultivated.
Over half of Sierra Leoneans don’t eat enough food, so increasing food production is paramount. Sierra Leone is among the bottom 15 countries in the global hunger index.
Part of these issues can be explained by the colonial institutions that still exist: Rural customary landownership from chief custodianship (instead of private ownership) and punishing pricing policies of marketing boards have historically contributed to extremely low agricultural productivity in Sierra Leone and across much of Africa.
Both these remnants have reduced incentives for farmers to invest in irrigation, use fertilizers, diversify portfolio of seeds, or preserve soil.
Trade
In terms of trade, Sierra Leone is a mining nation that mainly sells titanium, iron, and diamonds to the China and the European Union. Chinese firms like Shandong Iron & Steel operate and employ locals in the country.
Mining has been notoriously corrupt in Sierra Leone. A now defunct British firm, London Mining, has executives who were in court for bribing in Sierra Leone public officials.
Sierra Leone exported $874M as of 2021, which is lower than it did in 2016 when it sold almost a billion dollars of goods. Despite its resource wealth, the country’s limited export revenue stems from ongoing challenges with illicit smuggling of diamonds & gold done by gangs, corrupt firms working with government officials, or small scale-smugglers. This prevents substantial portions of these exports from entering the formal economy or bolstering the country's foreign exchange reserves, which was only $625M as of December 2022.
As of 2021, Sierra Leone is the third largest exporter of titanium ore. This sounds impressive until you realize that global titanium ore market is relatively small. It was a $2.72B market in 2021. Sierra Leone exports 8% of global titanium trade, so 8% of $2.72B market is $212M racked in for Sierra Leone. Compare that to natural gas, which is a $438B market. Qatar sells 13% of natural gas trade, 13% of $438B is $57.2B of revenue for Qatar. Titanium is not as in demand as a commodity is natural gas. Unlike other commodities, titanium has massive substitutes in aerospace, medical implant, military equipment, or industrial application you can think. Steel and aluminum are common substitutes which weakens titanium demand. There’s also few titanium products that have every day consumer usage which further weakens its low global demand size. Lastly, titanium is also a volatile commodity to depend on. In 2022, titanium was $22 per kg, in November 2023, it’s now 5.5 per kg (75% price erosion in a year).
In terms of iron, Sierra Leone is not a significant exporter on the world stage. In diamonds, Sierra Leone is the 10th largest producer of diamonds in the world. However, Sierra Leonean’s diamond production pales in comparison compared to the Big Three - Russia, Botswana, and Canada. Here’s global diamond production and rough diamond value in 2022. Sierra Leone produces less than 700K diamonds in a year, while Botswana produces over 900K diamonds every 2 weeks (Botswana makes 24.7M diamonds a year/ 26 = 950K diamonds every 2 weeks). Sierra Leone only produces $143M per year which is meager. This is in part because there’s substantial illicit mining activity, which means there’s diamonds that are being sold that don’t add foreign currency reserves to Sierra Leone’s central bank.
Artisanal Mining
As we discussed in Congo, Sierra Leone faces challenges with artisanal mining (low tech, low paid mining extraction). Luckily, instead of risking becoming buried alive to dig for cobalt/copper/diamonds underground, a sizeable portion of gems in Sierra Leone are alluvial (found in the river). Industrial miners like the defunct, corrupt British firm that operated in Sierra Leone, London mining, only employed 1400 local people. Highly mechanized industrial mining has never been a source mass employment. Because there’s a lack of good paying jobs, people will look through river beds or use pickaxes and shovels to look for gems. Sierra Leoneans will sell diamonds/gold to pay school fees for their kids, buy clothes, or make money to make investments in their farm.
Pre-Colonial History
Slave Trade
Portuguese explorers landed in Sierra Leone in the 15th century, forging alliances with the Sapes people, local coastal African rulers of Sierra Leone, to trade guns, swords & food for slaves & ivory. Muslim Mandinka (Mane) & Fula started to migrate to Sierra Leone from the Mali empire (modern day Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, and etc.) and fought the Sapes.
The Sapes-Mandinka conflicts would bring war captives that would be exported to Portuguese slave posts. The Portuguese made trading posts on the coast since they couldn’t enter Africa’s interior since Europeans died of Malaria and Yellow fever. Before the 19th century, the interior of West Africa was known back then as The White Man’s Grave.
Eventually, the Dutch, English, and French also made trading posts to take slaves. Roughly, 400K slaves were taken from Sierra Leone during the Transatlantic slave trade.
Aftermath of American Revolution
Following the American Revolution, in 1787, Britain had to deal with the thousands of free blacks that won their freedom from fighting in the war against America. British philanthropists made the Colony of Sierra Leone Colony (COL) on the coast of Freetown, as a refuge for freed blacks. Britain took them from Canada, Jamaica (Maroons), Barbados and London to Freetown. Freetown was also made a haven for slaves rescued by the British antislavery squadron. The freed men became a new elite called the Krio. COL was a private company run by a local agent that had legislative and executive powers. In the 1800s, European doctors and botanists discovered a treatment for malaria allowing them to enter Africa’s interior. Britain expanded the colony beyond the coasts which led to issues with the native Africans.
In 1808, Sierra Leone was made a crown colony and by 1863, Britain gradually increased black representation in government structures to the Krio elite. The Sierra Leonean Krio elite were able to make money selling groundnuts, palm oil and timber for European goods. The economy was booming so much that it attracted Arab merchants from Ottoman Turkish Syria (modern day Syria & Lebanon) & the broader West Africa.
In 1896, Britain established Sierra Leone as a protectorate, finalizing its borders. Despite Sierra Leone being a haven for free blacks there was still domestic slavery in Sierra Leone proper, 50% population of Sierra Leone were enslaved. (Although its probably better to think of a “Sierra Leone slave” as a subject, servant, serf, client, or retainer than a slavery in the Americas.)
The British extended their rule by making the local African rulers (who didn’t speak English) sign treaties that they didn’t understand. They appointed select rulers as 'Paramount Chiefs' to indirectly control Sierra Leone's economy. These chiefs managed taxes, justice, and land, forming a hereditary aristocracy to maintain British influence. The chieftaincy system aimed to prevent giving property rights to individual people that might challenge British authority. If Britain gave individual property rights, then the fear was locals would ask for more rights. Chieftaincy was a way of subduing the populace by strengthening the chiefs. Property rights were insecure under the chieftaincy system.
In 1898, the British made a “hut tax”, where the British would tax five shillings from every house. The chiefs thought this tax was insane (and didn’t understand the treaty they signed) so they started the Hut Tax rebellion.
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After the rebellion, Britain made reforms. They built a railway in 1908, linking coastal Freetown to the interior for cash crop transportation.
In 1928, domestic slavery was abolished. The League of Nations made fun of Britain for having its “free people haven colony” be one of last colonies to outlaw domestic slavery. In 1930, iron was discovered in Port Loko District and alluvial (river) diamonds were discovered in Kono, prompting the British to make a government run monopoly called the Sierra Leone Selection Trust. Rights to the monopoly was granted to the South African company, De Beers.
In 1936, De Beers was granted an exclusive right to make a private army called the Diamond Protection Force. The army would beat up Sierra Leoneans & Arabs that tried to make their own small business collecting or refining diamonds. It is worth noting that Britain did the exact opposite policy in Australia. British descendant Australians prevented the creation of a government owned monopoly, and every non-aboriginal Australian was allowed to mine for gold or diamonds or look for gold in the river, as long as they had a license. As a result, the mineral diggers became a powerful force in Australian politics. Britain used the government to promote exclusion in Sierra Leone while inclusion (for whites) in Australia. After diamonds & iron was discovered the colony went from being unprofitable colony that just sold cash crops to more profitable mining & cash crop colony.
Following World War II and hearing the independence of Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Syria, India & Pakistan, African nations sought greater autonomy, aligning with the idea of self-determination in the UN Charter.
In 1949, Britain initially responded by trying to bring more investment and improve lives for farmers. Britain allowed European firms to make palm oil mills and cigarette manufacturing to add value to raw products in Sierra Leone. Also, Britain made a marketing board for cocoa and coffee farmers.
Theory of a marketing board: The idea of the marketing board was to help farmers deal with volatile prices on global agricultural markets. Cocoa was (and still is) a very volatile agricultural good. The price might be $3000 per ton one year and $1500 per ton the next year. As a result, if farmer’s incomes dependent on volatile prices, the farmer’s incomes would be in jeopardy. The marketing boards were made so that they could absorb the price fluctuations. When world cocoa prices were high, the board would pay the Sierra Leonean farmers less than the world price, but when world prices were low, Sierra Leonean farmers were supposed to be paid handsomely.
Actuality of the marketing board: The idea sounds great in theory but it was awful in practice. The board needed profits to function, so the marketing board paid the farmers meagerly in good AND bad years so the marketing board expenses can cover overhead and salaries for the administration. The marketing board eventually became an indirect tax on farmers that discouraged farmers from investing in their farm since the Brits were just going to lowball wages regardless of how much investment and work was put in the farm.
The marketing board’s pricing policies remove incentives for the farmer to invest, use fertilizers, or preserve the soil. Because the farmers give money to the marketing boards and everyone receives the same wage, there was barely incentive to make a better farm besides making food to feed a family —subsistence agriculture.
Issues with the Colony:
By 1950, an influx of “illegal” Sierra Leonean diamond miners overwhelmed the Diamond Protection Force. Britain then allowed some of the diamond fields to be open to Sierra Leoneans if they obtained a license. Also Britain allowed more mining exports to be ploughed back in the economy with more schools, roads, and bridges. Riots still occurred as people wanted independence and hated the poor agricultural wages farmers paid them. By 1961, the nation was independent.
Next time we’ll discuss what happened post independence. I wanted to talk more about farming, energy, health, and pre-colonial history more than I usually do so you can see how the institutions shaped the society.
Sources:
Links are attached!
Sierra Leone: A Political History
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
African Politics — Crises & Challenges by J Gus Liebenow
https://data.one.org/country/?economy=SLE
More fine work.