This Little Light of Mine: Electricity in Sierra Leone

            If you follow this blog regularly, you may remember that I posted a piece in February about how important electricity is to the proper development of a society. If you don’t, you can find that post in the archives off in the right sidebar. However, what I didn’t talk much about was the state of Sierra Leone with regards to electricity.

            And to be honest there isn’t much to talk about. Very few cities in Sierra Leone get a steady, reasonable supply of electricity. Freetown at this point is fairly stable, but it is really the only city in Sierra Leone that does. Bo and Kenema also have decent supplies, but electricity access comes and goes. Outside of the urban areas, it is rare for rural villages to have any supply at all, let alone a consistent one.

            Yet signs of improvement are there. At present, Makeni, Koidu and Lungi have new power plants in the works, and the Bumbuna Dam hydro-electric plant has been functional since the end of 2009. Establishing an electricity-based way of life will be incredibly challenging in a country that has existed for so long without it. (although the payoff developmentally speaking will be huge). However, the biggest challenge facing the future will be integrating efforts to bring electricity to Sierra Leone with environmental concerns. Do we wait to bring sustainable electricity to the country, likely delaying access at all, or install what we have with the hopes that progress will follow?

            In this writer’s opinion, it would be more sensible to set up the country’s infrastructure to be based on energy forms that will last for decades to come instead of a source that will put the country years behind the rest of the world by the time it is fully established. However, there is significant value to the idea that sooner is better when it comes to getting Sierra Leone on the track to becoming an equalized world competitor. Electricity access in Sierra Leone is limited and unreliable, and just crucial to development. Hence, while we work on getting it integrated, it is just as important we are looking to the future and sustainability of the systems we plan to implement as part of our development work in years to come.

Marisa | Volunteer Blogger

Khadarlis for Sierra Leone

Marisa@khadarlis.org