Sierra Leone Total Projects: 4
Project Spending: $5,251

Historically an important strategic location during the 17th and 18th centuries as the point of origin and processing for many of the African slaves transported to the New World in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Sierra Leone is home to one of the world’s largest diamond deposits. The country is also rich in a smaller number of commercially valuable minerals. Freetown, the national capital, was founded by repatriated Africans from the Americas who later formed most of the small but influential Krio ethnic group. The country is home to dozens of indigenous ethnicities, all of whom coexist freely. In spite of the terrain’s abundance of valuable mineral exports, most Sierra Leoneans work directly in subsistence agriculture and agriculture accounts for the majority of the country’s GDP. Sierra Leone’s national journey has been erratic and unpredictable following a decade of sustained internal warfare from 1991 to 2002. This warfare largely eroded the country’s underdeveloped economy and human capacity. It is one of the world’s most impoverished countries with low levels of social and economic development and high rates of maternal and child mortality (87 per 1,000). Sierra Leone possesses the lowest life expectancy figures in the world. From 2013-2016, Sierra Leone, along with Liberia and Guinea, experienced the chaos of the largest outbreak in history of the deadly Ebola virus, which killed thousands and undermined political stability.