GDP: 4.38 billion
Real GDP growth rate: 5.5%
GDP per capita: 900
Pop. Living below poverty line: 70.2 %
Life Expectancy: men-38.92; women-43.64; total pop. -41.24
Adult Literacy: men-46.9%; women-24.4%; total pop. -35.1%
Birth Rate: 44.73/1,000 people
Death Rate: 21.91/1,000 people
Pop. Growth Rate: 2.282%
Age Structure: 0-14: 44.5%; 15-64-52.2%; 65+-3.2%
(data derived from CIA- The World Factbook)
Given Sierra Leone’s economical status it proves to be a perfect example of a third world country and shows great need for reconstruction. From 1991-2002 Sierra Leone struggled with a civil war that killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 2 million people, or 1/3 of the population (Background Note-Sierra Leone). This halted Sierra Leone’s economic growth by creating a corrupt society and government that was controlled by people who did not care about the well being of the country but them. They gave little money to the people for their work and kept the rest for themselves and it drastically damaged the GDP and infrastructure of the country.
“While it possesses substantial mineral, agricultural, and fishery resources, its physical and social infrastructure is not well developed, and serious social disorders continue to hamper economic development” (CIA).
Sierra Leone’s GDP is in the bottom bracket with only 4 billion dollars and is 163 out of 228 in the world rankings. In the births over death ratio, or population growth rate, Sierra Leone is ranked just 30 out of the 233 countries surveyed (CIA). This may explain why Sierra Leone has an increasing distribution of wealth.
Even more astonishing is that women, on average, have 5.88 children each (CIA). Due to the high population growth rate, Sierra Leone’s natural resources are being overwrought. Sierra Leone’s increasing GDP would not only would decrease GDP per capita, it would most likely increase the poverty rate, due to the overabundance of people, pop. growth rate, and the age structure as well. You can also infer from the data that because of the increasing population rate there lays a connection in why there is such a high poverty rate, adult literacy, and life expectancy because if there is a high population rate then the poverty rate will increase unless acted upon by the government which in turn effects adult literacy and overall life expectancy because of poverty.
Because 70% of the people in Sierra Leone are below the poverty line, they are unable to provide for themselves causing them to die earlier either because of malnutrition or because of their high rate of disease from food or water. In Sierra Leone 55,000 of the 6+ million people are infected with AIDS and currently have resulted in only 3,300 deaths, which ranks them 54 out of 236 (CIA). This is a contributing factor in why the life expectancy is so low because if AIDS becomes more widespread then less people will be able to work, that is if your not already, and cause more to die off and become unable to help provide for the economy thus hinder economic growth. In addition, more money would be spend on health related services because of the spike in disease.
If the economy could stabilize and increase this growth rate, it would see a dramatic improvement in the infrastructure that has proved unstable and unproductive. Also, if Sierra Leone tried to increase its literacy rate then that would increase the demand for education in the work force because all the qualified men and women which would increase productivity thanks to the ideas that would be generated for better efficiency by the more educated qualified workers. Given their debt at $1.61 billion dollars the increasing of education and productivity would prove to be a vital part in the countries rise out of the 3rd world status.
Works Cited
Background Note- Sierra Leone. U.S. Department of State, 18 Feb. 2009. Web. 22
Nov. 2009.
The World Factbook. 2009. Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009.
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