Sierra Leone

Through its groundbreaking Inform Women, Transform Lives campaign, The Carter Center partners with city leaders worldwide to raise awareness about women’s right to access information and to help cities reach women with valuable information and essential municipal services. 

Access to this information empowers women with a stronger voice, enabling them to participate in public life, utilize public services, and make more informed decisions for themselves, their families, and their communities. In Sierra Leone, the project has partnered with the city of Freetown.

How It Started
Emerging from a brutal civil war that ended in 2002, Sierra Leone has made significant strides in reforming its legal, governance, and security structure. Still, substantial challenges remain, including:

• High rates of sexual and gender-based violence
• Lack of data about this violence, which hurts prevention and response efforts
• Underrepresentation of women in various sectors, including justice
• Lack of gender-sensitive human resources policy and training
• Insufficient coordination to implement alternative sentencing for minor offenses and effective decriminalization efforts
• Barriers in exercising the right to access information held by public authorities

Our Work and Methods
Through our Rule of Law Program, the Center is committed to:

• Supporting the government and civil society in addressing these concerns
• Empowering citizens to engage in justice and governance processes

Through various initiatives, we are working to advance justice, accountability, and gender equality in Sierra Leone. Those efforts aim to:

• Strengthen equitable access to justice
• Increase women’s professional participation in the justice sector
• Combat sexual and gender-based violence through social accountability
• Harmonize efforts to decriminalize poverty
• Ensure improved access to government-held information

Impacts
Working with government entities, civil society organizations, and donors, we are promoting justice and equality across Sierra Leone. We’ve managed to:

• Conduct a gender diagnostic of magistrate courts, informing the justice sector’s implementation of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment plans
• Train judicial personnel and legal professionals on gender issues
• Co-develop a collaborative data management system to improve support and case management for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence
• Provide a platform for dialogue about sexual and gender-based violence through town hall meetings
• Support a national mapping of sexual and gender-based violence service providers
• Publish a study report: Women and the Right of Access to Information in Sierra Leone
• Help stakeholders develop solutions for the barriers women face in accessing public information

The Carter Center first became a force for peace in the war-torn nation of Sierra Leone starting in May 2002, when it observed the first presidential and parliamentary elections since the end of the country’s devastating civil war. 

A peaceful transition of power in Sierra Leone offered hope to the rest of conflict-ridden West Africa.

At the invitation of the National Election Commission, we’ve observed subsequent elections in 2007, 2012, 2018, and 2023.

View our election reports for Sierra Leone

How It Started
Like many low- and middle-income countries, Sierra Leone faces serious challenges in addressing mental, neurological, and substance use disorders. Years of limited resources, stigma , and a shortage of trained mental health professionals have left a significant gap in access to care. Making matters worse are the lasting effects of the civil war, the Ebola epidemic, and other public health crises.

Our Work and Methods
Through the Center’s Mental Health Program in Sierra Leone, we work with partners to strengthen mental health systems, expand local capacity, and support government-led strategies to make quality mental health care accessible to everyone.

We do this by:

• Training and supervising mental health clinicians through the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) framework
• Supporting the Ministry of Health in policy development and civil service classification of mental health workers
• Carrying out operational research
• Providing technical input on the national policy and strategic plan to help shape government priorities, expand access, and improve care

Impacts
Along the way, the Center has:

• Built stronger relationships with government, development, and civil society partners
• Supported training and follow-up supervision at several health facilities
• Highlighted needs for more structure and to better equip clinicians and facilities
• Worked in partnership with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to conduct a national prevalence study on substance use and related mental health factors
• Answered a Ministry of Health request to offer input on the national mental health policy and strategic plan
• Met with high-level stakeholders from different levels of government to strengthen relationships and promote collaboration to advance priorities

One partnership, one training, and one policy at a time, the Center is helping to build a stronger, more connected mental health system in Sierra Leone that aims to provide quality care for all.