Akindele Decker

Management in the Public Sector (BMGT 366)

May 1, 2007

Civil Society, IGO, and Governance in Sierra Leone:

Introduction: Civil Society and Governance

Civil Society is defined in several contexts, although the mainstream definition refers

to the groups and associations that occupy a position between the household, state, and

the private sector. These include, amongst other non-governmental groups, such others

as trade unions, business associations, faith groups, trade associations, recreational

groups, and think tanks.i

According to the Institute of Governance, governance is “the process whereby

societies or organizations make their important decisions, determine who has voice, who

is engaged in the process and how account is rendered.”ii

Civil society in Sub-Saharan Africa has emerged as a tool against the ever-ending

struggle that citizens continue to face under corrupt and insatiable leaders.

Civil Society plays a very important role in the influence of governance. Civil society

can influence each of the policy-making processes, which includes setting the policy

agenda, formulating the policy, implementing the policy, and monitoring and evaluation.

The policy process in developing countries is negatively influenced by the consequential

outcomes of bad governance, including corruption, lack of transparency and

accountability.
 Case Study: Civil Society, IGO and Governance in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a small country off the Atlantic coast of West Africa with

approximately five million people. Like many other developing countries in Africa,

Sierra Leone has experienced poverty at the highest level, and has ranked at the

fluctuating levels as the poorest and second poorest nation in the United Nations human

development index for the last several years. The country also has one of the highest

child mortality rates in the world and a high illiteracy level compared to all other nations.

From 1991 to 2002, Sierra Leone was involved in a brutal civil war that devastated the

economy, political, and social structure of the country. Though some researchers have

stated that the cause of the war was due to diamonds, which is the country’s largest

export, others argue that the political system was the primary cause of the war in Sierra

Leone. Since post-independence in April 1961, and post-conflict after 2001, public

administration in Sierra Leone has declined in demonstrating the principles and values of

good governance. The emergence of this as a motivating factor to more devastation and

further conflicts has instigated a growing materialization of a strong civil society and

increased influence from IGOs in Sierra Leone. Civil society, IGOs and the government

are the three most important components of the development or decline of governance in

Sierra Leone.

The role and purpose of civil society in Sierra Leone is one that has been revived

and damaged at different times in the country’s history. Civil society played a primary

role during the push for de-colonization, by mobilizing, using evidence-based action, and

for the most part, directly engaging the colonial government at that time. Due to the

general consensus at that time, as every Sierra Leonean strived to gain independence,
civil society’s meaning was one of conviction, and even though diverse groups and

associations rose out of the populace, there was a collective vision that each Sierra

Leonean aspired for. This all changed when the country gained its independence and

civil society as it was before, began to witness its demise. The meaning and purpose of

civil society in Sierra Leone changed from collective bargaining among the citizens who

all strongly advocated for independence, to more defined assorted purposes based not on

a general need, but on the premises of ethnicity, status, and political fixation. The cause

for this shift was the rapid transition from dependency to responsibility, without a defined

plan that would accommodate the ethnically and traditionally diversity of the people.

Sierra Leone was unlike any other West African country, in the sense that the nation was

divided into a colony and a protectorate, whereas the colonial settlers were westernized

and well-educated black settlers from Europe and America, while the protectorate

included the traditional and native Africans in the country. This diversity formed a

growing rift between the settlers and the protectorates, and though they managed to form

a collective union to achieve independence, the British in the process had done much

damage in instilling an attitude of inferiority within the protectorate and emphasizing the

“civilized” educated settlers. When Sierra Leone finally gained its independence, the role

of civil society itself changed rapidly. This is due to the fact that with independence,

brought responsibility and roles of nation-actors. The Creole settlers felt that their role in

this post-independence nation was to inherit the responsibility of managing the nation,

due to their belief in their intellectual superiority and value system, which they deemed as

fundamentals of a strong public administration. The protectorate on the other hand, saw

it differently, and approached public administration with traditional [in the historical
sense] point of views, based on each of the value systems of the major ethnic groups.

The role of civil society had shifted from a direct goal of achieving independence, to the

role of responsibility to govern. The purpose of civil society had also shifted from

gaining political freedom, to acquiring power. The development of public administration

in Sierra Leone was in sync with the development of this new type of civil society, which

was ethnically diverse, socially diverse, and differed in beliefs of who was responsible to

govern. A short time after the announcement of the first presidential election winner,

there were several coups and an overthrown government, which was heavily due to ethnic

diversity among tribal based political parties. Between 1961 and 1991, there were over 4

coups, several riots, and shifts to one-party rule and back to multi-party rule. The line

between civil society and public administration in Sierra Leone had been blurred, without

a defined direction, purpose, and objectives that accommodated the diversity of ethnic

provinces and regions, governance in Sierra Leone became a mere “me for me” and “you

for you”. The process had started with a pre-independence collective civil society force,

to a post-independence traditional and ethnically diverse civil society forces, which

resulted in the creation of a public administration that was neither representative of the

general needs of the people, nor were adequate efforts invested in ensuring good

governance principles such as accountability and transparency, because each major ethnic

group developed their own belief that responsibility to govern the nation was vested on

their ethnic group, respectively. This led to increased marginalization, as corruption in

public administration became an all time high. This led to bad governance and a weak

public administration. Some of the resulting outcomes included increase in poverty,

marginalization, lack of government spending on roads and educational institutions, and

increased nepotism in the hiring of public administrators. The final outcome of this was

another emerging of a new type of civil society force. This civil society force, tired of

the suffering and socio-political problems caused by the public administration, formed a

collective insurgent force with a new meaning and purpose, which was to end that system

of public administration and create a new and better type of governance system. This

evolved into an eleven-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands, and displaced

thousands, as well as the military coup and overthrow of the then government of Sierra

Leone. In 2001 the war was officially over with the intervening of outside military

reinforcement such as the United Nations Peacekeeping force, and the Economic

Community of West African States Monitoring Group. Although the war was over, and

the government had been re-instated, there was one drastic change in post-conflict Sierra

Leone. This was the decline of civil society, and the emergence of IGOs in Sierra

Leone’s public administration sphere.

Emergence of IGO and decline of Civil Society: PRSP, TRC and Governance in Sierra

Leone

James McCormick 1in the Polity Journal identified three roles which International

Organizations or namely Intergovernmental Organizations (IGO) play in International

politics. These include

1) International organizations as instruments of national policy

2) International organizations as systemic modifiers of state behavior

3) International organizations as autonomous international actors2.

1
Alternate Approaches to Evaluating International Organizations: Some Research Directions, by James M.
McCormick Polity. 1982 Northeastern Political Science Association
This is evident in the direct roles major IGOs play in public administration and State

politics in Sierra Leone. In this case, the focus will include the two major IGOs in Sierra

Leone, namely the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The IMF is

an international organization of 185 countries that was established to promote

“international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, economic growth, and among

other things, financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payment

adjustments.”3 The World Bank comprises of five organizations, which include the

international bank for reconstruction and development (IDA), international development

association (IDC), international finance corporation (IFC), multilateral investment

guarantee agency (MIGA), and the international center for the settlement of investment

disputes (ICID). Sierra Leone became a member of both IGOs in 1962, a year after

independence, however both institutions have not been key actors in the country’s

development until the civil war, when the country’s economy plunged to the bottom of

the United Nation’s human development index. As stated earlier, reaching up to the war,

civil society in Sierra Leone had played several roles in shaping governance in Sierra

Leone. However, after the civil War, civil society became less relevant, as government

became more powerful, and an emergence of a strongly influential IGO phase became

evident. As the role of civil society shifted from collective bargaining to responsibility,

then to frustration, which finally led to war and the debasement of the civil society,

public administration turned to IGOs, primarily the World Bank and IMF, for direction.

2
Alternate Approaches to Evaluating International Organizations: Some Research Directions, by James M.
McCormick Polity. 1982 Northeastern Political Science Association
3
http://imf.org/external/about.htm
 The role of IGOs in Sierra Leone has proved to be more powerful in shaping

governance in Sierra Leone, than civil society in the past. This is evident in the

comparison of two key initiatives launched by both actors in partnership with the

government in post-conflict Sierra Leone. These include the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission Report (TRC), which was a civil society initiative, and the Poverty

Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP), which is an initiative of the World Bank and IMF.

According to the World Bank, PRSPs:

“…Describes a country’s macroeconomic, structural, and social policies and

programs to promote growth and reduce poverty, as well as associated external financial

needs…. PRSPs are prepared by governments through a participatory process that

involves civil society and development partners, including the World Bank and

the…IMF”

The Sierra Leone government in partnership with the IMF and World Bank’s IDA

completed the country’s PRSP in February 2005. The PRSP included three pillars that

provided a framework for sustainable development in post-conflict Sierra Leone. These

included 1) good governance, security and peace building, 2) pro-poor sustainable growth

for food security and job creation, and 3) human development. In the aspect of

governance, which is the first pillar of the PRSP, the document promoted anti-corruption

efforts and effective management of public resources, including natural resources. In this

regard, the government in partnership with the IDA and IMF launched the National Anti-

Corruption Strategy (NACS). The purpose of this policy document was for good

governance, institutional reform, and the eradication of corruption in Sierra Leone. The

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) that was established by the government carries out
the objectives of the NACS. The ACC has carried out several initiatives in collaboration

with the World Bank to this end, such as the National Action Planning Workshop, which

involved 130 participants who engaged in strategic decisions to develop means and ways

to combat corruption and improve governance.4 The second objective stated by the PRSP

is to reduce inequities in the delivery of public services through decentralization. The

National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) primarily carried out this effort, which

supports the government’s decentralization strategies and help rebuild local governance

structures. NaCSA has taken several initiatives to this end, such as the Community

Development Program which seeks to enable community participation in the design,

implementation, management, evaluation, and maintenance of NaCSA projects. Though

the PRSP lists very effective strategies in fighting corruption, improving governance,

reducing poverty, and fostering sustainable development in Sierra Leone, it has been

interpreted differently by civil society and the government. As evident from the vast

resources that the government has invested in, to implement the strategies of the PRSP,

the civil society however, has extensively denounced the effort of the PRSP. This is due

to three primary reasons 1) is the skeptism that civil society has in the intentions of IGOs

in Sierra Leone, 2) local communities have demonstrated their dissatisfaction in the

delivery of the PRSP, and 3) there were no direct participation of civil society in the

development of the PRSP. In regard to the first reason, increased skeptism of the

intentions of IGOs, in not only Sierra Leone, but in developing countries in general have

become increasingly widespread due to the growing pattern of bad governance

demonstrated within institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. This has called for

global advocacy for reforms in both institutions. It is also widely believed that these
4
http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/sierraleone/pdf/sl_natwkshp_sum.pdf
institutions in particular are western-driven entities that impose restrictions on nations

and impose flawed policies on the governments of developing countries in order to

exploit the nation’s resources. In regard to the second reason why the PRSP has been

widely unaccepted by civil society, is the extensive reporting from local communities that

the vast number of initiatives launched by the government on the basis of the PRSP, has

been ineffective and inefficient to the growing needs of the people. This is due to the

growing notion of bad governance and corruption within the government itself, with large

amount of funding for these initiatives unaccounted for by the government agencies, lack

of transparency in the implementation of these initiatives, and lack of monitoring groups

to hold the government accountable for successes and failures of the PRSP. Finally in

regard to the third reason, local civil society groups, representing all factions of society

including women, youth, children, and the poor have demonstrated the failure in

including their participation in developing these PRSP strategies that directly affect them.

The Youth for example, represented by civil society groups such as the Center for

Coordination of Youth Activities, Young Leaders – Sierra Leone, have held several

conferences and workshops for youth engagement in the development process. In these

events, a wide consensus was reached by majority of the youth delegates who voiced

their distress in being marginalized from the PRSP process, particularly in the poverty

reduction and employment aspect, as youth unemployment in Sierra Leone is one of the

highest and widely recognized problems facing the nation. However, the Government

has demonstrated its approval of the PRSP despite these acts of dissatisfaction from civil

society, and the relationship and influence of the World Bank and IMF has increased to a

level of dependency on these IGOs by the Sierra Leone Government.

The TRC was developed under a partnership of the Sierra Leone government, the

Revolutionary United Front (RUF), victims of the war, and the Truth and Reconciliation

Committee, which consisted primarily of leading members in the country’s civil society.

The TRC was set up to investigate the causes leading up to the war, provide introspection

on the war, and provide recommendations for prevention and stability for the future.

Among the issues covered in the TRC, governance was one of the most important.

According to the TRC, bad governance played a primary role in the leading to the war.

Areas on governance covered by the TRC included separation of powers,

decentralization, public participation in democratic processes, independence of the

judiciary, the rule of law, and the existence and effective operation of oversight bodies

and institutions of accountability. The TRC reported that starting from independence,

separation of powers had been defunct, and checks and balances of the parliament and

executive branch were ineffective with several unconstitutional actions by the executive

branch went unchallenged by the parliament. This in effect, developed a powerful

executive branch that was largely unaccountable, unconstitutional, and without

transparency. In regard to decentralization of political power and delivery of public

services, the TRC reported that decentralized councils that were created by government

for the purpose of decentralization contained several weaknesses. The primary weakness

was that these councils were not entrenched into the constitution and therefore based their

existence and accountability to the central government rather than public local

constituencies for which they served. Mass participation according to the TRC, was

negatively influenced by the political dominance of two major parties (All Peoples

Congress APC, and the Sierra Leone Peoples Party SLPP). These two parties used
regionalism and undemocratic strategies to negatively influence the electoral process, by

developing the already diversity of ethnic tribes and promoting this diversity as the

fundamentals for electing governments. Ethnic groups dominated these two parties, with

the APC being primarily natives of the Temne ethnic group and the SLPP consisting of

the Mende ethnic group. This resulted in unfair and un-free electoral processes,

dominated by intimidation and tribal politics in Sierra Leone. The TRC found that the

rule of Law was based solely on the grounds of ethnicity, whereas different laws were

applied to different regions and ethnic groups, rather than the common law of the land.

The TRC concluded that governance in Sierra Leone had been totally defunct from the

beginning of its independence due to lack of accountability and transparency,

ineffectiveness in the separation of powers, and the absence of a sound rule of law. The

most critical aspect of the TRC report was the list of recommendations listed at the

conclusion of its report, that were directed at the government and stakeholders, in

implementing for sustainable stability in socio-political Sierra Leone. Among its

recommendations, the TRC called for anti-corruption initiatives, improvement on the

democratic participation of youth and women, amending of corruption laws to have

corruption cases tried independently, and the adoption of constitutional principles of

national security5. Though the TRC has been widely accepted by civil society and non-

profit organizations such as Amnesty International, Campaign for Good Governance,

Center for Democracy and Human Rights, and the Sierra Leone Bar Association, the

government has intentionally continued to ignore the TRC recommendations.

5
Presentation by Mohamed Suma Programme Director, Sierra Leone Court Monitoring Programme TRC Recommendations and the
PBC Agenda in Sierra Leone
 Conclusion

The role of civil society and IGOs in shaping governance in Sierra Leone has

been visible and theoretically evident. Civil society’s role has been transformed several

times in its endeavor to shape governance in Sierra Leone. However, due to foreign

imposed factors such as colonialization, the natural development of civil society, which

included among other things, defining a general purpose, devising a plan, and fostering

progress through influence of public administration, were in the end ineffective,

untrustworthy, and insignificant. This was also largely due to the cultural, ethnic and

social diversity of the people, who, based on their tradition belief systems, developed

different purposes and meanings of the role of governance, public administration, and

responsibility in Sierra Leone. With the absence of civil society, the foundation of any

society, public administration turned towards intergovernmental organizations such as the

World Bank and IMF for direction in implementing the objectives and principles of good

governance. The lesson learned is that without collaboration between civil society, which

is indeed the voice of the people, and public administration, there are three possibilities:

1) the possibility of the development of an ineffective and misrepresented system of

governance, 2) the pursuit for definition and direction of national composition will be

outsourced to foreign entities rather than local constituents who are direct participants

and recipients of state objectives, and 3) the misconception of power, responsibility, and

role in society is inevitable. Based on the research conducted for this paper and an

analysis of these issues, recommendations for progress includes 1) greater participation of

local communities in the development of programs and initiatives which directly affect

them, 2) civil society groups must conduct an introspective study in past failures and
collectively define a general purpose, objectives, and role in the development process, 3)

tighter working relationship must be developed between government, civil society, and

IGOs, and 4) the fundamentals of good governance which include accountability,

transparency, democratic principles, and acceptance of a rule of law should evident in all

aspects of society.

References:

Is There a Civil Society in Africa?, by John Mw Makumbe. International Affairs (Royal Institute of
International Affairs 1944-) 74, 2. 305-317 (1998).

Alternate Approaches to Evaluating International Organizations: Some Research Directions, by James M.

McCormick Polity. 1982 Northeastern Political Science Association

Republic of Sierra Leone: Joint IDA-IMF staff advisory note on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.
World Bank. Report No. 31775-SL. April 13, 2005

Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Vol 3B. 2004.
Retrieved from www.trcsierraleone.org

Executive Summary: Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report. Retrieved from

www.sierraleonenetwork.org

i
“Civil Society and Development” Civil Society Team. DFID, February 2006
ii
Edgar, Marshall, and Bassett (August 2006). Partnerships: Putting Good Governance Principles in
Practice. Institute on Governance.