The Resource Curse and Natural Resource Environmental Governance in Sierra Leone, Case Study Kono district.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how, to what extent and why Sierra Leone continues to struggle to turn its minerals into an engine for a sustained and inclusive economic growth and development. Consequently, the first aim of this research is to explore the evidence of two resource curse (RC) symptoms in Sierra Leone in the post-war era. Secondly, this research critically evaluates Sierra Leone’s natural resource environmental governance (NREG) agenda for the country’s mining sector, and its ability to resolve mining-induced problems. This research employed structural analysis. Consequently, it grounds Harvey’s notion of, ‘accumulation by dispossession’ in rich empirical data derived from Sierra Leone. Fieldwork was conducted in Sierra Leone: in Freetown and Kono a mining microcosm. This research employed qualitative methods.

Findings from this research revealed that Sierra Leone continues to be a victim of the RC. Low taxes, tax concessions and exemptions and alleged tax evasion practices have deprived the economy of valuable development funds. Furthermore, an influx of mining companies into Kono, dislocated communities from their land. The consequences of this dislocation engendered and contributed towards the process of deagrarianisation and depeasantisation and exacerbated poverty. Findings also revealed that the NREG agenda is incapable of addressing mining-induced problems in Sierra Leone. This is because the provisions in the 2009, Mines and Minerals Act enable the dislocation of mining communities and fails to provide explicit and unambiguous guidelines for compensation and resettlement of affected communities. The subjective nature of the Environmental Impact Assessment process undermined the NREG agenda. Furthermore inadequate resources coupled with a constrained mandate undermined the effectiveness of the Agency.

Although this research does not discount the importance of corruption and a lack of transparency, it argues that the prioritisation of a ‘neoliberal’ type of governance is central to the problems and issues identified.