Working Paper 16 Freetown: City report - Joseph M Macarthy June 2024

Related Organizations

Addis Ababa University

Statistics Sierra Leone

Table of Contents

• Acronyms 4
• Executive summary 6
• Housing 7
• Informal settlements (IS) 7
• Health, wellbeing and nutrition (HWN) 8
• Youth and capability development (YCD) 8
• Safety and security 9
• 1. Introduction and overview 10
• 1.1. Purpose and audience 11
• 1.2. Approach 11
• Figure 2: ACRC’s conceptual framework 12
• Table 1: Primary data collection methods and number of participants involved per domain 13
• Figure 1: Map showing the geographic location of Freetown 10
• 2. Locating Freetown within the national political settlement and governance structure 13
• 2.1. Characterising Sierra Leone’s political economy – the role of Freetown 14
• 2.2. Key relationships between the national and local government in Freetown 17
• 3. City-level power balance and governance 19
• 3.1. The city power balance 19
• Table 2: FCC funding by source in 2020 20
• 3.2. Impact of city power and governance on the development of Freetown 21
• Figure 3: Map of Freetown showing its political and administrative boundaries 22
• 4. City of systems 23
• 4.1. City of systems overview 23
• 4.2. History of contestation 24
• 4.3. Ownership and governance 25
• 4.4. Coverage 26
• 4.5. Access 27
• 4.6. Quality 29
• 4.7. Risks and vulnerability 29
• 5. Domain summaries 30
• 5.1. Housing domain report summary 31
• 5.1.1. Introduction 31
• Figure 4: Map of the Western Area, showing Freetown and WARD 32
• 5.1.2. Access to decent, affordable housing in Freetown 32
• 5.1.3. Actors and governance 33
• 5.1.4. Challenges and opportunities for housing development 34
• 5.1.5. Political settlement issues influencing housing 35
• 5.1.6. Reforms in the housing domain 35
• 5.1.7. Housing and the effects of systems functioning 36
• 5.1.8. Policy recommendations 37
• 5.2. Informal settlement domain report summary 37
• 5.2.1. Introduction 37
• 5.2.2. The informal settlement situation in Freetown 38
• 5.2.3. Map of authority within Freetown’s informal settlements 39
• 5.2.4. The politics of informal settlements in Freetown 39
• 5.2.5. Significance of informal settlements to urban development 41
• 5.2.6. Recent reforms and implications for ACRC research 41
• 5.2.7. Policy recommendations 42
• 5.3. Health, wellbeing and nutrition domain34F report summary 43
• 5.3.1. Introduction 43
• 5.3.2. Current situation, challenges and opportunities 43
• 5.3.3. Issues to be addressed in the HWN domain 45
• 5.3.4. Areas of policy action 46
• 5.4. Youth and capability development (YCD) in Freetown 48
• 5.4.1. Introduction 48
• 5.4.2. Present situation of the YCD domain 48
• 5.4.3. Political role of the domain 49
• 5.4.4. Links to political settlements 50
• 5.4.5. City power balance 51
• 5.4.6. Formal and informal governance 51
• 5.4.7. Key systems and systemic issues 52
• 5.4.8. Policy recommendations 53
• 5.5. Safety and security in Freetown 54
• 5.5.1. Introduction 54
• 5.5.2. Scope of the research 55
• 5.5.3. Main findings 55
• > Safety and security concerns of people in Freetown 55
• > Link between law and order, political settlement and city power balance 56
• > Key systems and systemic issues 56
• 5.5.4. Policy recommendations 57
• 6. Overarching and crosscutting issues 58
• 6.1. Introduction 58
• 6.1.1. Thwarted devolution 59
• 6.1.2. Informality 60
• 6.1.3. Vested interests, rents and factionalism 61
• 6.1.4. Inequality 62
• 7. Conclusion, potentials for reform and implications for future research and interventions 64
• 7.1. Conclusion 64
• 7.2. Potential reform and interventions 64
• 7.3. Implications for future research and interventions 67
• References 70
• Back cover_working paper series 2024.pdf 1
• Sample_ACRC working papers.pdf 1
• 1. Introduction 1
• 2. Heading 1 which should not capitalised 1
• 2.1. Heading 2 1
• Table 1: Title not all capsed 1
• References 1
• Covid Collective_community responses synthesis report 060622.pdf 1
• 1. Background and introduction: Understanding Covid-19’s impacts and responses to it in East African cities 1
• 2. Methodology 1
• 3. Key findings 1
• 3.1. Violence and insecurity 1
• 3.2. Emergency relief 1
• Mogadishu 1
• 3.3. Countering misinformation and tackling the Covid ‘infodemic’ 1
• 3.4. Coalitions, collaboration and grassroots-led responses 1
• Kampala 1
• Figure 1: Overview of the top-down formal structure of Uganda’s Covid-19 response led by the NTF 1
• Mogadishu 1
• Figure 2: Overview of the formal structure of Somalia’s Covid-19 response, including the Mogadishu Incident Management System 1
• Nairobi 1
• Mathare 1
• 4. Conclusions and policy recommendations 1
• Table 1. Summary of key Covid-19 responses (top) and different cross-cutting modalities of interaction between actors in the three cities (below) 1
• Figure 3: Modalities of interaction across scales in response to the Covid-19 pandemic 1
• 4.1 Key Recommendations 1
• References 1