Speeches

Challenges of Eliminating Poverty in Sierra Leone

October 08, 2005

 

Ambassador Thomas N. Hull Keynote Address at the Inauguration of the Fatima Institute in Makeni, Sierra Leone

I am extremely honored to be addressing you today at this significant event.  The inauguration of the Fatima Institute is a major step forward in education in Sierra Leone.  Like most noble initiatives, the Fatima Institute has a modest beginning, but it also has an ambitious vision that over time will make it a vital institution benefiting this country.    In recognition of this special event, the American Embassy is making a contribution to the library of books and subscriptions to ten American periodicals, such as Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Scientific American, and the Journal of African Policy.

I have been asked to speak on the challenges of eliminating poverty in Sierra Leone.  Contrary to the sub-title in your programs for this event, my emphasis will be less on the role of the state, and more on the roles of individuals and their communities.  This is a particularly appropriate topic for this occasion because the Fatima Institute embodies some of the points that I will make today including the importance of leadership, of quality education, and of non-governmental action for development.
 
I must begin my remarks with a disclaimer.  I do not come to you with a magic formula for the development of Sierra Leone.  Having worked in Africa for most of the past 37 years, I have watched many well-conceived plans and projects for improving life succumb to climate, culture, corruption, and conflict.  Sub-Saharan Africa has 13% of the world’s people, but 28% of the world’s poverty and 24% of the world’s hunger.  Between 1980 and 2002, Africa’s share of world trade declined by half.  Clearly development has not worked as it should. 
 
Since first coming to Sierra Leone in 1968, I have seen Sierra Leone become debilitated, destitute, and then devastated instead of developed.  There are now positive signs that Sierra Leone is on the road to recovery, but poverty remains as widespread and intractable as ever.
 
Substantially reducing poverty or, conversely, raising the standard of living for the vast majority of people is a basic developmental goal.  The latest development document is, in fact, entitled the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper or PRSP for short. 
 
The PRSP intends to build development based on three “pillars.”  Pillar One is “Promoting Good Governance, Peace and Security.”  Pillar Two is “Promoting Pro-Poor Sustainable Growth” in areas such as agriculture, fisheries, mining, infrastructure, and the private sector.  Pillar Three is “Promoting Human Development” in sectors such as education, health, housing, sanitation, youth employment, gender empowerment, and environmental management.  The PRSP is a well-conceived strategy, but like so much in Sierra Leone, it is donor dependent.   Sierra Leone’s major donor partners, including the United Nations, World Bank, United Kingdom, and United States, have global obligations, and it is unrealistic to expect that the PRSP will be fully funded initially even with new donors making commitments.
 
I want to focus, therefore, on what Sierra Leoneans can do to reduce poverty irrespective of international assistance.  I broadly categorize these as economic, psychological, and political.
 
In the economic sphere, I believe it is fair to say that life is a hardship for most Sierra Leoneans.  Poverty, in economic terms, means not having sufficient money for basic human needs.  I realize that when people are living at a subsistence level, it is difficult to see beyond tomorrow, but people need to create jobs and farmers need to be able to market their produce to have incomes.  Sierra Leoneans with entrepreneurial spirit can stimulate jobs.  People do not have to wait for government or donors to make roads passable for food to go to market.  Communities can mobilize themselves to make it happen.  Sierra Leone needs technology, but even without technology, people can become more productive.  There is no lack of intelligence and ingenuity in Sierra Leone, but people need to develop the confidence to apply those qualities constructively. 
 
There are some economic conditions, such as the climate, that are beyond the control of anyone, but there are others that can be influenced by the actions of individuals and communities.  Education empowers people to use their intelligence productively.  School enrollment is up significantly, but has the quality of education improved?  Parents have an obligation to insist that teachers teach to high standards.  Illiteracy is a challenge where the literate have an obligation to teach the illiterate.  Sierra Leone underutilizes women by imposing too many hardships and by granting them too few rights.  Shelter could be improved if more people worked together as a community to construct housing collectively.  Sierra Leone has many debilitating diseases, but Sierra Leoneans have the power through education to teach each other better nutrition, sanitation, and health practices to diminish many diseases.
 
If there is one message that I want to emphasize in the economic sphere, it is that Sierra Leoneans, applying their God given intelligence, can reduce their poverty by pooling their energy and resources to work together for community development.
 
Poverty imposes a severe psychological burden.  All too often the future looks hopeless because poverty is oppressive, but part of the struggle against poverty is to reject a fatalistic view of life.  I become very frustrated when I see Sierra Leoneans tolerating the intolerable instead of taking initiative to change their lives.  When I was a Peace Corps Volunteer here many years ago, I was often told that poverty exists in Sierra Leone because of  “God’s will.”   As an American with a different perspective, I would respond by observing that “God helps those who help themselves.”
 
The Reverend Jesse Jackson’s message to impoverished Americans is to “keep hope alive,” meaning that they can rise above poverty by applying themselves to the task.  I find that too often in Sierra Leone, people pull apart instead of pulling together.  Instead of being inspired by the success of others, people too often want to destroy what others have achieved.  This is an attitude that perpetuates poverty.
 
Another psychological attitude that needs to be changed is the commonly held view that the donors and government will provide.  As I have stated before, major donors have global responsibilities, and will never have enough resources to provide all that Sierra Leone needs to emerge from poverty.  The concept that donors will always provide is a paternalistic view reminiscent of the colonial period.  Donors expect Sierra Leoneans to take responsibility for their future, and will respond by collaborating as partners in development. 
 
The attitude that government will provide is equally specious.  Any country that relies on government to develop will not develop because governments invariably lack the ability and resources to do so.  The best engine of development is private enterprise when it is regulated in the public interest.  One of the greater challenges to overcoming poverty is increasing public understanding that business not only makes profits, but also generates the jobs, capital and sustainable prosperity that development requires. 
  
Politically, Sierra Leone needs good governance to surmount poverty.    We all know the burden that corruption has imposed on Sierra Leone.  We could debate whether poverty created corruption or corruption created poverty, but the reality is that the greatest challenge to eliminating poverty is corruption.   Corruption is fundamentally abuse of power by those who have been given responsibility to serve the people, and it is corrosive to the democratization that should enable people to direct their own destinies.
 
Democracy is a system of government that empowers people to elect their leaders, but when those leaders fail to represent the will of the people and represent their personal interests instead, then democracy fails.  Local councils have been instituted to bring government closer to the people so that they can hold their elected representatives accountable.  Sierra Leone’s elected leaders, whether in parliament, local councils, or chieftancies, have obligations to those who elected them, and if they betray that public trust through abuse of power without being taken to task, then the corruption that perpetuates poverty will continue.  Unfortunately, until people become less patient, less accepting and more demanding of their leaders, they cannot expect to have the leadership that democracy requires. 
 
I would also like to suggest that the people of Sierra Leone, many of whom are members of secret societies and lodges, could harness those traditional institutions to play more constructive modernizing roles in the governance of the country, for example on the critically important issue of reforming land tenure in the provinces to fight poverty.
 
Despite the challenges that I have cited, Sierra Leone is moving in the right direction.  More food is being grown and the infrastructure, such as the Makeni-Freetown road, is being restored.  Conflict has been eliminated to the extent that the UN peacekeepers can depart.  Much more needs to be done, of course, and the opportunities exist for ordinary people to join together in common cause to overcome poverty.
 
With these few observations, I would like to conclude my comments, but before I do, I would like to note the potential of faith based organizations and other non-governmental organizations to help mobilize communities through civic education on all of the issues that I have raised, as well as to promote the moral values that deteriorated during the rebel war.  In observing that the people of Sierra Leone can do more to reduce poverty by themselves, I am not suggesting that Sierra Leoneans have to do it alone.  Indigenous and international organizations want to help and international donors want to be your partners, but without your own commitment and without your contributions, all the goodwill and donations from the outside will come to naught.
 
Finally, I want to congratulate Bishop Biguzzi, the Roman Catholic Church, and everyone involved in establishing the Fatima Institute on this auspicious occasion.  Thank you for your attention.