Sierra Leone is advancing its climate policy on multiple fronts and in collaboration with various partners. Areas of work include fossil fuel subsidy reform, afforestation, conservation, and improving climate change data.
Partners include the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Bank, and International Monetary Fund (IMF), among others.
- Petroleum subsidies have been removed, reducing pressure on the government budget. In the first half of 2023 the government incurred a revenue loss of US$32.8 million by subsidizing fuel prices and a loss of US$3.3 million from direct subsidies to oil marketing companies.
- Through Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), and support from development partners, the government is implementing afforestation projects and rolling out the third phase of the Tree Planting Project to plant another 2.2 million trees. The FAO is also working with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change to update the Forestry Inventory, last updated in 1975.
- Sierra Leone’s Medium-Term National Development Plan (2024–2030) focuses on doubling the area of national forest and wetlands under improved conservation management, doubling the area under sustainable carbon financing from the current baseline of 71,000 ha, planting an additional 10 million trees, and increasing local revenue from ecosystem services by 35% or more.
Challenges include access to data on climate change variables, which has also motivated updates to the National Forestry Inventory with support from the FAO. Via the Climate Finance Unit, the Ministry of Finance is seeking support from development partners including the World Bank and IMF to develop a macroeconomic database incorporating all climate change variables. The data is to be available to all MDAs, donor partners, academic institutions, the private sector, and others.
Keywords
afforestationconservationdatafossil fuel subsidy reformtechnical assistance
