RURAL DVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES IN SIERRA L,EONE

Journal of Rural Deuelopment IO ( December 1987): 2 /1 - 222

RURAL DVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES IN

SIERRA L,EONE: ANALYSIS, ISSUES AND

IMPLICATIONS

21/

MATHEW L. S. GBOKU *

ABSTRACT

This paper is premised on the assumption that approaches to tackle rural development are still relatively new in. Sierra Leone and sufficient time has not clasped for proper evaluation of the more recent efforts. The paper provides learning experiences about the nature, complexity and scale of our own problems that could be of relevance to rural development practitioners in other developing countries with similar conditions like those of Sierra Leone. The main focus of the paper is an analysis of the various development programmes that have attempted to tackle the innumerable rural problems in the country. In the remaining parts of the paper, the author attempts to examine the successes, and outlint the issues and inplications for better execution of future rural development programmes.

I. Overview

Ordinarily, the explanation of what rural development means would seem unnecessary as the term appears commonplace. The concept, process and discipline of rural development are however very much misunderstood even by some of its practitioners. Most people view rural development as one concerned with providing solutions to agricultural problems alone. The scope of rural development is more than this perception since programmes aimed at farmers only cannot solve all the numerous problems of rural societies.

The World Bank paper on rural development(February, 1975) defines rural development as a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of rural people. Under this definition, the objectives of rural development extend beyond any one particular sector. In Sierra Leone like in many third world countries, the philosophy that rural development should be tackled from several fronts(ie. agriculture, infrastructure, education, health, social,

* Lecturer, Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Njala University Col

lege, University of Sierra Leone

212 Journal of Rural Development

welfare, expanded communications, increased employment etc.) has always been the working principle.

Opinions however, differ among countries and practitioners as to how this philosophy should be put into practice. In Sierra Leone, for instance, the Integrated Agricultural Development Project(IADP)advocates are with the opinion that since the projects are integrated, rural development should have an administrative set up that makes it possible; for it to provide all other facilities(in addition to agricultural inputs)so that it will be self - sufficient. Another school of thoughthold the view that in order to ensure continuity and commitment on the part of the sector ministries, foreign technical assistance like IADP should work through the sectoral ministries and serve only as promoters. This approach makes it easy for each sectoral ministry to take over their respective sectoral programmes when the donor agencies eventually withdraw. Under this arrangemtnt, the Ministry of Development and Economic Planning serves as the coordinating body among mmnistries. It was this second school of thougt that influenced the .Bo-Pujehun GTuGOSL Rural Development Project which presently could be classed as the most popular approach to rural development.

Because of the relative newness of rural development approaches, conclusions derived from the experiences of various practitioners still remain tentative and preliminary. They are likely to be modified with a fuller understanding of the process of change in rural areas. The fact of the matter is that conditions are so diverse in nature that one country's ecxperience often provides insigts relevant only to the circumstances of that particular country. This notwithst anding, this paper attempts to provide learning experiences about the nature, complexity and scale of our own problems that could be of relevance to rural development practitioners in other developing countries with similar conditions.

II. History of Rural Development in Sierra Leone

The history of rural development in Sierra Leone is akin to those in other capitalist agricultural African countries. In these set of countries, emphasis is on cash crop agricultural production alongside with subsistence farming. The majority of the rural population are thus engaged in agricultural production for an important portion of their income. Sierra Leone for many years has been involved in concerted efforts to develop the raral areas. Such efforts have however concentrated on agricultural development. Consequently, rural development efforts have for the most time been channelled through the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry(MAF)and the various IADPS.

Experience from the first national development plan for the period 1963/ 64- 1970/71 shows that in order to raise the standard of living of the people, particicularly those in the rural areas, it is necessary to raise production

Rural Development Programmes 2_13

not only above subsistence level, but also well above the requirements of the population increases, create new employment, improve health, nutrition, education and infrastructure, expand communications, and control population. Even though these programmes showed up to be important components of rural development, it has not been possible to implement most of them in the styles and on the scales required to make desired developmental impact.

The second development plan( 1974/75 - 1978/ 79) adopted a systems approach to agricultural and rural development aimed at improving the welfare of small and low income farmers's which included the organization of in-put supplies, provision of basic and appropr ate services such as research, training and extension, construction of production of rural infrastructure and the organization of package scheme(marketing, price stabilization} for the encoragement of production of particular trends. A critical look at the national development plans shows that the rural devel6pment strategy, policies, priorities and programmers of the government of Sierra Leone have remained identical to those outlined in this second national development plan.

Current rural development strategies as outlined in the 1981 /82 - 1985/ 86 national development plan identified the following policy directions for rural development in Sierra Leone.

I) Strengthening the institutional mechanism and its effectiveness mmonitoring and coordination programmes with a rural bias.

2) Increasing rural income through productive employment3) The implementation of the growth poles strategy.4) Improving the environment.5} Developing adequate extension services and facilitating the availabil

ity of farm inputs and the marketing of agricultural product.6) Oriention rural school facilities including those for adult education

through communal and cooperative endeavours.7) Promoting the evolution of appropriate technologies for rural develop

ment.8) Utilizing the mass media to educate the people on various develop

ment programmes and projects relevant to each region and to createsintrest to participate actively in national development.

It was further pointed out that the projects that would qualify for imple-mentation under the current strategy should possess the following features:

I) Primarily labour intensive2) Small scale3) Of relatively low cost and4) Having linkage effects which will give rise to other economic activities

such as increase farm productivity.These guidelines gave rise to classifying projects into three categories of

decreasing priority:

214 Journal of Rural Developmml

Category 1:

These group of projects directly deal with productive activities like vegetable gardening and food crop production, poultry, swine, small ruminants, cattle production, fishing, fish and other food processing endeavours, handieaft and cottage industries.

Category 2:

Projects under this category focus on the construction and improvement of physical infrastructure such as public works which gives direct employment to rural workers and at the same time support increase production and productivity in a short time. Examples of such rural works projects include land and water development, drainage and land use, irrigation system, storage facilities for agricultural products, feeder roads, rural electrification, rural transport, bridges, etc.

Category 3:

This group of projects involve the construction and development of social infrastructure like d·rinking wells, village schools, small clinics and health centres, pit latrines, community centres, low cost houses, reading centres and library programmes.

This three-tier rural development programmes were to be pursued in an integrated but decentralized manner, combining outside help with local selfhelp.

III. Recent Rural Development Trends

The group of projects in categrory one clearly indicates the enthusiastic priority government places on agriculture as a major move to rural development. As in most less developed countries, agriculture plays a vital role in the over all economy of Sierra Leone. Approximately 80 percent of the total population depends directly on agicultural production for an important portion of their income. During rhe past twenty years exports o_f agricultural commodities, particularly coffee, palm kernels and cocoa ·have provided well over 20 percent of the nation's export earnings.

In several respects, however, the performance of the agricultural sector in Sierra Leone has been quite unsatisfactory. The relative price of rice for instance, has risen more rapidly than the general cost-of-living index over the past few years while it remains the single most import food item in the country. The demand for it is still growing enormously. Yet because local

Rural Development Programmes 215

production is developing quite sluggishly, Sierra Leone is currently finding it difficult to feed its people with the consequent importation of ever-increasing quantities of food from Asia and the United States.

This phenomenum can be attributed to the partial neglect of the agricultural sector over several decades. In recent years, for instance, Sierra

Leone has become increasingly dependent upon the exploitation of her

mineral resources, in particular iron and diamonds. Hence most rural youths

have been subjected to pressure from the mining areas where opportunities

for wage employment are offered and thus weakening the farm base. In order to improve this unwholesome situation, the nation has been directing its

attention and material resources at improving the rural areas. The thrust of such conscious rural devellpment efforts has usually been on the improve

ment of the agricutural sector as the main priority area. The main objective

of the nation in this direction was to attain self-sufficiency as quickly as

possible. In the following discussion, a brief review of some of the measures

adopted by the government since the early 1970s to attain the objective of food self-sufficiency and a self-reliant rural economy is presented.

The Integrated Agricultural Development Projects (IADPs)

In 1972, the Sierra Leone government embarked on an agr�rural develop

ment programme implemented through semi-autonomous Integrated Agri

cultural Development Projects(IADPs), designed to improve generally, the

welfare and living conditions of the rural people. Th.e main objectives of

these IADPs were firstly to promote food, cash crops and livestock produc

tion through the provision of supervised credit, farm inputs and extension

services, and secondly to provide feeder roads, agr�processing facilities, market centres, village water supplies and health centres. Presently, eight

IADPs operate in the various parts of the country. Despite the financial,

management and orgaizational problems encountered by these projects, they

represent marked improvements on central extension and other rural support services.

The Adaptive Crop Research and Extension (ACRE) Project

The ACRE Project is an agricultural project whose basic aim is to help

increase agricultural productivity of the small farmers in Sierra Leone through the conduct of on-farm adaptive research trials and demonstrations. In this exercise, the researchers, extension workers and the farmers work as a

team in trying to select appropriate technology that can be used to improve

food crop production.

In addition to conduct of research trials and crop management demonstrations of the farmers' fields, the project also engaged in the creation of incen

tives and supplementary activities that will enhance the objective of in

creased food crop production. Some of these activities include the supply of

crop production packages (minikits) to farmers, agricultural institutions and


schools, encouragement of large scale (farm size) crop management demonstrations; organization of crop contest among farmers;and the regular promotion of fielddays at the village level.

Despite the many setbacks, the ACRE Project has come a long way since its field activities_ that commenced in 198L One of the major indications of success according to the project director Professor W.E. Taylor in 1984 has been the ever increasing number of farmers that want to participate in the ACRE activities. Evidence of this, he further said, can be measured by the general demand for improved crop cultivate that the project has introduced, and to certain extent farmers adoption of the introduced technology.

The Fedefal Republic of Germany/Government of Sierra Leone(GTY GOSL) Bo-Pujehun Integrated Rural Development Project

This project is the latest approach to rural development in Sierra Leone which in the opinion of many Sierra Leoneans and foreign expert 1s more popular than the IADPs approach.

It was based on benchmark survey which some of the other projects were not able to do before they took off. It also benefited from the shortcomings of the IADPs. The approach allowed the projects to be integrated into the existing local level government administration which are strong points in favour of the approach.

The Integrated Agricultural Project for Women through Community Action GCP /SIL/ 015 / NOR Sierra Leone

The Integrated Agricultural Project for women which recently went into its implementation stage in August 1985 covers eleven chiefdoms in the northern district of Koinadugu. Its development objectives include: (i)to increase the production of selected crops by facilitating the access of women farmers to improved seeds, fertilizers and agro-chemicals,(ii)to increase productivity per unit area through improved cultivation practices by strengthening extension and training services to women(iii)to develop a methodology for strengthening agricultural extension services to women through the reorientation and training of extension atents, (iv) to improve food utilization and weaning practices through nutrition edcation, (v) to increase the income of women farmers by facilitating the marketing of selected crops.

A recent baseline and performance assessment study of the project revealed the following salient problems : (i) inadequate and late delivery of inputs (fertilizers, seeds, agro-chemicals, etc.) to farmers, (ii) massive crop failures as a result of unfulfilled promises made by the project staff, (iii) intensive crop damages by livestock, (iv) provision of unsuitable crops and vegetables contrary to the needs of the farmers e.g. cabbage, raddish and squash instead of potato, cassava, groundnuts, maize, beans, etc., (v) poor transportation facilities (i.e. poor roads and lack of vehicles for extension workers) that defacilitate effective and adequate supervision of farmers. The

Rural Development Programmes 2 I 7

extension gap makes extension staff less acquainted with farmers problems,

(vi) discrimination by women leaders (manny queens) in the selection oftrainees who in turn worsen the situation by failing to diffuse the ideas

obtained from the training programmes to other farmers (Sandy 1987).

People's Participation Project (PPP)

On the basis that the sourthern district of Pujehun appeared to be the least

served in terms of development, it was selected as a pilot zone for this pro

ject.

Under the tutelage of the Ministry of Social Wealfare and Rural De

velopment, the PPP started in Sierra Leone in August, 1982 after a brief staff

orientation course.

Emphasis was on bottom-top strategy as opposed to the topdown

approach. The PPP was designed to assist the poorest of the poor in organiz

ing themselves into small_ homogeneous groups which could be in better posi

tion to combat poverty and related issues by embarking on income and em

ployment generating activities. The project adopted a progressive approach

of providing functional adult literacy, training, needs identification survey

and establishment of projects.

The Work Oxen Project

The Sierra Leone Work Oxen Project (SL WOP) is a national animal traction

research and devclopmenr programme, coordinating draft animal extension

programmes in several multilateral, bilateral and non-governmental rural

development projects. Research interests include socio-economic studies, tra

ditional animal health and husbandary practices, animal health surveys,

on-farm row-cultivation trials of rice and groundnuts and equipment de

velopment. A resonable research has been conducted in the above interest

areas and the result published while the project activities are gaining wider

acceptance by farmers particularly in the northern part of the country where

the vegetation lends itself suitable for ox traction.

The Rice Crash Programme

This programme which was implemented 111 the early 1970s aimed at in

creasing rice production through the provision of good producer prices,

mechanical cultivation services, seeds and fertilizers, transport facilities etc.

The overall objective was to reduce the amount of foreign exchange spent on

annual imports of rice.

The failure of this programme to a greater extent depended on lack of

institutional base. That is the failure to consider the need for spare parts,

personnel, farmers' needs and hiring capacity for tractor operations, nature

of our environment and the country's dependence on fossil fuel before im

porting the tractors that were meant to bring about rice self-sufficiency. The

neglect of such an important consideration was regretted by the immediate


wreckage of the tractors that now lie as relics for which the nation spent millions of leone as foreign exchange.

The World Food Programme

This concentrated on inland valley swamp nee farming and provided food and export advice to farmers for developing swamps and building irrigation channels. The Chinese Technical Assistance contributed greatly to the implementation of the \Vorld Food Programmes through intensive swamp rice production projects estabilished in various parts of the country. In addition to swamp rice production, there was the Chinese sugar production project aimed at producing 6,000 metric tons of sugar from 1367 irrigated hectares(3,350 acres). Much of our sugar is presently produced locally by this Chinese sugar cane project located in the northern town of Magbas.

Rural Health and Nutrition

This is an area that calls for priority attention because it is only a healthy population that can produce. Besides efforts to provide hospitals, dispensaries and rural maternity centres, the government is also involved in immunization, child health care and nutritional programmes. In this connection, a project worthy of mention is the Benniseed mix project. This F AO funded project under the su.pervision of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Rural Development aimed at developing, producing and distributing cheap but high quality infant and child feed based on locally available products especially for people in the rural areas and for other vulnerable groups. However, certain operational and distributional problems have limited the impact of this project. Also, due to increased prices of the raw materials (rice, benniseed and beans) in the country and the considerable increases in world sugar prices, the cost of production has consequently risen. This affected the estimated cost of the finished product. Thus, instead of cheap Bennimix products as initially aimed, expensive products now exist in the market which most of our rural populace cannot afford to purchase.

Other Rural Development Programmes

Numerous rural development programmes exist 111 the country that no attempt will be made in this paper to have a detailed analysis of all of them. Some of the other programmes that however need brief mentioning include:

I) The Gambia/Mattru John Oil Palm Mill Project which started in 1973 and aimed at oil palm production on both plantation and smallgrowers' farms.

2) The Integrated Pineapple, Tomato and Citrus cannery factory Projectin Mabole near Makeni which started in 1979 with out-growers services aimed at increasing production of pineapples, citrus and tomatoes.

3) Rural Transportation which embarked on the construction of rural

Rural Development Programmes 219

roads and bridges.

4) Rural Education which aims at tackling the problem of literacy in

rural areas with relative shift in emphasis from academic education

to functional literacy programmes.

5) The Extension Training Project which aims at training junior and

middle level extension workers.

N. Issues and Implications

The activities of rural development programmes reveals a number of issues

concerning services, financial arrangement, management and organizational

problems even though it could be generally accepted that some of these prog

rammes like the IADPs represented marked improvements on central exten

sion and other rural support services. Some of these problems are:

1) As autonomous project organizations, most of the programmes lent

themselves to rapid implementation but at the same time perpetuated their

dependency on external funds. Unless caution is taken from the initial stage,

externally supported rural development projects have problems of their own

of which the major ones include:

i) Arrangement for the smooth take-over of the projects by existing

national agencies or organizations when the donor agencies would have

withdrawn their services. The implications for such arrangements are

twofold: fistly, there must be built-in mechanism to inbolve appropri

ate host country agencies in all aspects of the project, and secondly,

capable indigenous staff must be developed to replace foreign experts.

ii) Another important aspect of the issue of finance relates to terms of

loan disbursement i.e. how much of the foreign loan is being directly

spent in the host country. Experience in most developing countries has

been that most of these issues are not adequately resolved in favour of

the receipt countries at the inception of the projects. For instance,

most of the loan that would have benefited the rural poor come in the

form of vehicles and inappropriate equipment. The little that is left

over is in most cases spent on foreign experts for their salaries and

allowances.

2) Another problem area is that because the Ministry of Agriculture and

the various rural development programmes have seperate extension services,

many distinct extension services exist side-by-side. The implication here is

that when the external donors of the projects withdraw, it would be adminis

tratively untidy to have the distinct extension services under the same admi

nistration.

3) Some of the rural development projects pay better salaries and other

incentives than the Ministry of Agriculture and hence attract the Ministry

extension staff.


4) Within some of the development projects like the IADPs, there is differential treatment of participant staff. A local counterpart receives about I/ 10 of the expert's salary. Whether the wages earned by expert staff are part of the external loan or not, the differential treatment of participant staff does not presage well for a project's success.

5) The development strategy adopted in most rural development effort isbased on the assumption of "trickle down"effect of development from the growth centres. The strategy concentrates in urban areas at the complete neglect of rural areas. It is difficult to perceive any workable plan for increased food production or successful rural development without the participation of the rural population who are the producers. Turay( 1980) refered to such a strategy as production in an"Animal Farm"situation where those who should produce are not participants to vital planning stages and execution.

6) Further, the focus of the delivery system is more often to individualswho are given various names as "Participant farmers," "Contack farmers," "Interest farmers" and "Volunteer farmers" rather than families or communities. These individuals do not represent the village community but themselves and hence projects can hardly be justified to depend on these individuals.

7) Unavailability of adequately trained indigenous staff presents anotherproblem area. Training in agro-rural development is a recent introduction and up to the present time, Sierra Leone depends on neighbouring countries for the training of certain categories of agro-rural development technicians such as livestock, husbandry, and health technicians.

8) One major problem which rural development is facing in developingcountries is the coordination of programmes among the agencies which serve the rural sector. Up to the present time in Sierra Leone, there is no functional mechanism for coordinating rural development efforts, The Ministry of Development and Economic Planning which was expected to serve as the coordinating body for development programmes found this to be its most difficult assignment because of the following reasons: (i) the l'vlinistry of Development amd Economic Planning does lot have resources(e.g. experienced planners) with which to discharge this responsibility, and (ii) no ministry wants to be coordinated and consequently each ministry or agency guards jealously its areas of jurisdiction and sees others as intruders.

9) There is lack of impact evaluation studies in almost all the rural development programmes. In the few cases (e.g. ACRE) ,,,here evaluation is undertaken the lending agency personnel and salaries for such task. This in effect is an unnecessary means of creating more jobs for experts and smoothing satisfaction at ·self-criticism by donor agencies (Turay 1980). Invariably, the executing agency protects its interest and blames the failure of the project on the "reluctance of the farmers towards the acceptance of technological change."

Rural Development I'rol!,rammeJ 221

JO) One clear issue to consider relates to the concept of integration, some projects have considered feeder roads and wells as basic rural necessities while others include community health and adult literacy. A common view on the concept of integation must be held by rural development practitioners. Perhaps one way of successfully implementing the commonly accepted view is to base the programmes on the problems and felt needs of the targets.

V. Recommendations

On the basis of the issues highlighted in the preceding discussion, the following recommendations appear relevant for future rural development programmes in Sierra Leone.

I) The "trickle down"development strategy which has the tendency tofavour large farmers but discriminates against rural areas in terms ofreceiving project benefit needs to be reviewed in such a way that thevarious sectors of the economy(rural and urban)can develop simultaneously. The new Bo-Pujehun GTZ/GOSL lntegarted Rural Development Model in which the various executing agencies and the communities are involved and trained for smooth take-over should beseriously considered for widespread adoption. Further the rural community approach should be emphasized at the expense of the individual approach and efforts be made to activate rural families towardcommunity work through community based activities. This approachwill ensure commitment and self-reliance in rural development efforts.

2) Because of the multi-dimensional nature of rural developmentproblems, and most importantly because the rural people see their problems as closely integrated rather than as sectoral issues to be dealt with seperatcly, a well coordinated approach is an imperative for any effective rural development programme in Sierra Leone. With proper coordination duplication of efforts will be eliminated and cheap and easy route to efficiency and effectiveness will be pursued. There is therefore the need for administrative reforms which will include proper coordination mechanisms. One possible suggestion for achieving this is by stimulating the function of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Rural Development and a definite policy decision taken to strengthen the Ministry of Development and Economic Planning as a coordinaging body. A possible move to tackle the problem of inter-agency coordination is to merge some of the rural development structures as recently done with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Ministry of Natural Resources to form a new Ministry of Agriculture and National Resources (MANR). The Ministry of Agriculture and the IADP extension services have also been merged.

3) The terms for the disbursement of foreign loans should includelimited spending on foreign equipment, coverage of some of the local


costs and a reduction of the exhibitant salaries and allowances paid to expert staff to a comparable rate paid to the indigenous staff.

4) Provision of adequately trained local staff as rural developmentproject managers in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of rural development projects for all the aided projects should be given priority. It is however advisable that a more detailed study of training needs of different categories of staff be done before such a programme is embarked upon.

REFERENCES

Lakoh, A.K., 1980, "Strategies for Urual Development in Sierra Leone, The Sierra Leone

Agricultural Journal, Vol. 6, No. I, pp.39-41.

,1981,"Some Determinants of Agricultural Rural Development: A Functional Model," Paper Presented at the _10th Annual Conference of the Agricultural Society of Sierra Leone.

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry/USAID, March 1984, Facts about Adaptive

Crop Research and Extension (ACRE) Project Services to Farmers.

Ministry of Social Welfare, 1974, Annual Report of the Communily Development and

Social Welfare· Division.

Sandy A.A.,1987,"Baseline and Performance Assessment Study of the Integrated Agricultural Project for Women," A Consultancy Report Submitted to FAO.

Sierra Leone Government, 1963/64- 1970/71, National Development Plan,

Freetown. , I 978/82 - 1985/ 86, National Development Plan, Freetown.

Turay, H.,1980, The Relationship between Planning and Agricultural Policy for Rural

Development and Accelerated Food Production: A Case Study of Sierra Leone.

World Bank, 1975, Rural Development, Sector Policy Paper.

RURAL DVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES IN SIERRA L,EONE

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