Freetown: City report
This report was originally published by the African Cities Research Consortium on 16 June 2024.
This study considers how power and the political settlement are configured at the national level and the city level in Freetown, Sierra Leone. It explores how the political settlement, systems and development domains interact and influence urban development in Freetown.
Analysing Freetown’s political economy fills important gaps in research on the politics of development in Freetown and address the scarcity of prior studies on core city systems (energy, housing, water, waste management, sanitation, health, education and transport).
The report finds that Freetown’s political economy is influenced by both local and national-level politics, which is firmly linked with the country's weak systems of governance and decentralisation. This is rooted in Sierra Leone’s long history of ethno-regional divisions between the two leading political parties and the rent seeking behavior of politicians and other elites. This undermines the functioning of city systems responsible for the delivery of services and infrastructure across a range of development domains, thereby making the city less socially inclusive, equitable and productive. Addressing structural development issues has to rooted in understanding Sierra Leones political settlement.
