Sierra Leone has been ranked amongst the top 10 African countries with the highest food inflation rates in 2024. It implies that Sierra Leone is one of the countries with the worst inflation rate in Africa. It is preceded by Egypt and followed by Malawi, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, The Gambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Guinea, Liberia, and Ivory Coast of the Mano River Union are not in the loop of the 10 worst countries with the highest inflation rate, as Sierra Leone, even though the four countries have the same geopolitics within the Mano River basin.
According to sources advanced by Trading Economics, Sierra Leone’s food inflation rate has soared to 59.2% in 2024 from 47.5% in 2023 according to the Food Security Update Report from the World Bank.
All of these, begs the question as to what is happening to Sierra Leone in the sub-region when it comes to food security as anticipated by President Bio in his second government to FEED SALONE. The President’s ambitious project to feed Sierra Leone is a good initiative, if the government embarks on mechanized farming. However, since the Feed Salone project was launched at Brookfield’s Hotel at Jomo Kenyata Road, which C4D Media attended, what has been done so far with the enormous promises made to salvage the problem of hunger in Sierra Leone?
By and large, Sierra Leone has been struck with a high food inflation rate, a challenge that has a significant obstacle for individuals, households, and the country at large if modalities are not put in place to salvage the escalation in prices of essential goods and services. It is no gain to say that the incessant rise in the prices of goods and services could have a ripple effect across the various facets of the daily life of the ordinary or vulnerable communities and mount immense pressure on the country’s small economy with a per capita income of 472 USD.
Food security update report in December 2023, in general, has shown that: ‘an estimated 31.7 million individuals in West and Central Africa urgently required food and nutrition assistance, with projections indicating a potential increase to 44.5 million during the lean season between June and August 2024 without appropriate interventions’’ Because Sierra Leone is one of the worst countries in West Africa with the highest food inflation rate, there is the proclivity that Sierra Leone is no exception that Sierra Leoneans required food and nutrition assistance, otherwise, 2024 would be disastrous, except the government plays the magic with the FEED SALONE Project.
Fundamentally, inflation high inflation propels food inflation. In economic terms, inflation is the rate at which the general prices for goods and services in a country increase regularly.
In Sierra Leone, the economic conditions have been difficult to contain and the measures the government has put in place to curb it, have not created the necessary impact on the lives of the people. Inflation is connected to the economic principle of supply and demand but is Sierra Leone producing enough to meet the demand of Sierra Leone of the needs of the people? Hence, excess inflation, which occurs when prices rise faster than wages, causing currency to lose value. The Sierra Leone currency has been rated as the worst five in the world according to recent reports. The purchasing power of citizens and the country’s currency is weak and decreasing.
As indicated above, Sierra Leone’s food inflation rate has risen in recent years. As it is, Sierra Leone has the second highest food inflation in Africa. The prices of goods and services changed rapidly putting the country in an economic crisis. The country has changed its currency and printed large amounts of money and additional money to recover its expenditures and effect change but all things remain the same with the economy still in a coma. Like the demand–pull inflation suggests, in Sierra Leone, the demand for goods and services requires more money to be spent to get a few goods. The rising prices of goods and services have caused some buyers to drop out of the market, which in turn affects the economy. With inflation rising and affecting the prices of goods and services, it could have been fine if the wages of workers were increased to maintain the status quo but that is not happening I Sierra Leone. The monthly salary of workers is a pittance, especially to low-class workers in the civil service, who cannot buy a bag of rice with their salaries. As far as wages remain the same, inflation will continue to rise in Sierra Leone. The Inflation rate has raised the prices of goods and services in the country and when that happens without being controlled, there is the case that the purchasing power of Sierra Leoneans will decrease over time, especially when it has to do with a rise in the cost of food items. The rise in the cost of living affects the human cost of living because Food is an essential need. Even when prices of food items soar out of control, we continue to buy them because we need to eat. And this inevitably encourages the inflation rate to skyrocket. When the inflation rate skyrockets the prices of goods and services, it tends for the state to degenerate into chaos through protests for government to address the issue as happened in Sierra Leone on August 10.
It would be recalled that the government most often linked the economic crisis in Sierra Leone to the Ukraine /Russia war and coronavirus outbreak but before the war broke out there was been risk of a food crisis in Sierra Leone although the war worsened it. Sierra Leoneans and the government should doubly redouble their stride to enhance food sufficiency in Sierra Leone. The government is on the right track with the FEED SALONE projects but where, when, and how, only God Knows.
