Sierra Leone is a country situated in the western part of Africa, with an average population of five million in which Women and youth formed greater proportion.
The country emerges from an eleven-year civil war. Following the declaration of the war being over, was a spontaneous returned of people to their home towns and villages with absolutely northing to start life with. For this reason, the initiative of microfinance implementation was both timely and practical way to help people rebuild and enhance their earning capacity.
Despite the severe suffrage on Sierra Leonean society, the sense of mutual obligation and support within extended families and the obligation to share, remains powerful. These realities of pervasive and acute poverty and a widespread determination to assure more than individual survival and gain must be understood for a micro-lending programme is to succeed since they represent countervailing pressures toward capital accumulation and dispersal of resources often for non-productive purposes.
Sierra Leone has experienced a high rate of failure of developmental projects over years. These failures did not begin with the onset of civil war. It must be noted that, the near absence of development for many years, declining per capita incomes, increasing competition from a rising population for limited resources and poor governance have contributed greatly to the erosion of civil society and the emergence of conditions that facilitated open conflict. It is this reality that the past government has been trying to combat with its National Action Plan for Poverty Alleviation, its programme of macro-economic reform supported by international development agencies and its policies of support for the private sector.
The country emerges from an eleven-year civil war. Following the declaration of the war being over, was a spontaneous returned of people to their home towns and villages with absolutely northing to start life with. For this reason, the initiative of microfinance implementation was both timely and practical way to help people rebuild and enhance their earning capacity.
Despite the severe suffrage on Sierra Leonean society, the sense of mutual obligation and support within extended families and the obligation to share, remains powerful. These realities of pervasive and acute poverty and a widespread determination to assure more than individual survival and gain must be understood for a micro-lending programme is to succeed since they represent countervailing pressures toward capital accumulation and dispersal of resources often for non-productive purposes.
Sierra Leone has experienced a high rate of failure of developmental projects over years. These failures did not begin with the onset of civil war. It must be noted that, the near absence of development for many years, declining per capita incomes, increasing competition from a rising population for limited resources and poor governance have contributed greatly to the erosion of civil society and the emergence of conditions that facilitated open conflict. It is this reality that the past government has been trying to combat with its National Action Plan for Poverty Alleviation, its programme of macro-economic reform supported by international development agencies and its policies of support for the private sector.
It should be noted that the flourishing of women's associations, their visible role in public decision and their pivotal role in ensuring good governance and viable economy give courage to those who believe Sierra Leone can heal herself and develop its economy and society.
