Inclusive peace and reconciliation in Sierra Leone (Kolhat Barray) Nearly two decades on from Sierra Leone’s civil war (1991-2002), there is considerable continuity 
with pre-war structures and dynamics. The concentration of wealth and power in Freetown, the 
relative deprivation of rural and peri-urban areas, are fundamental features of the country’s political 
economy. Mounting public frustration with weak rule of law, corruption, and poor accountability for 
chronic service delivery failures ensures that Sierra Leone remains fragile and prone to conflict 
recurrence. 
As in any context, everyday conflicts are commonplace in Sierra Leone. In societies characterized by 
cohesion and the rule of law, social norms and institutions provide a framework for fair resolution of 
conflicts while protecting basic rights, and restrict the use of violence. Due to Sierra Leone’s history 
of unequal power relations and weak rule of law, everyday conflicts are often resolved in favour of 
the most powerful party or left unaddressed, resulting in grievances and undermining social 
cohesion. In rural and peri-urban areas, people struggle to claim rights, address grievances, and 
resolve conflicts; the ability to do so invariably requires leverage or the intermediation of a powerful 
patron (sababu), such as a chief. 
In rural and peri-urban Sierra Leone, the most important everyday conflicts are over land and natural 
resource rights, matters of family relations and inheritance, debts, petty theft, corruption, witchcraft, 
farmer-pastoralist disputes, and feuds between neighbours, villages, and schools. The statutory 
justice system plays only a marginal role in resolving these problems, due to challenges identified in 
the 2018 UN Common Country Assessment, including long delays, weak institutional capacity 
(especially in rural areas), lack of judicial independence, and limited support to vulnerable victims. 
Magistrate’s courts, at the lowest level of the statutory system, are viewed as distant and costly. For 
these reasons, a 2018 Afrobarometer survey found only one-third (32%) of Sierra Leoneans trusted 
the statutory courts. Establishment of a Legal Aid Board (LAB) charged with regulating and 
expanding legal aid service provision has gone some way toward improving access to statutory 
justice, and LAB Community Advisory Bureaus (CABs) have become important service provision 
points for the poor. 
Various forms of community-based dispute resolution (CBDR) are more commonly used by people 
to claim rights, address grievances, and resolve conflicts outside the magistrate’s courts and in ways 
that are considered locally legitimate11. Within these institutions, conflict resolution is normally 
facilitated by respected and influential intermediaries with customary or religious status, advocating 
settlements that reflect local norms and values. The most widely-used CBDR providers are: 

Customary authorities, including paramount chiefs and sub-chiefs with authority over 241 
local courts, but also sometimes in irregular chiefdom courts (“chief barrays” or “kangaroo 
courts”), or acting as more informal mediators, arbitrators, conciliators and counsellors; as 
well as local court chairpersons, chiefdom speakers, family heads, breadwinners, elders, and 
secret societies. It is in the local courts, and through the intermediation of chiefs or elders, 
that 75% of rural Sierra Leoneans resolve problems at local level. While these mechanisms 
maintain equilibrium and order in communities, they also tend to reinforce gerontocratic and 
patriarchal power relations, with deleterious effects for youth and young women in particular. Chiefs are represented by the National Council of Paramount Chiefs (NCPC), and policy 
related to chieftaincy is managed by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural 
Development (MLGRD). 

Local Police Partnership Boards (LPPBs), established in line with the Local Needs Policing 
ethos of the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), enable communities to participate in solving local 
safety problems. LPPB members are volunteers operating without much financial support, 
who intervene on a range of criminal and civil matters and mediate minor disputes within 
communities and between communities and SLP. LPPBs are supported by SLP Community 
Relations Officers (CROs), include designated youth and women’s representatives, and have 
proven to be sustainable in the long-term. 

District Security Committees (DISECs) operating under the aegis of the Office of National 
Security (ONS), a secretariat reporting to the National Security Council (NSC) that advises 
the President on state security issues, and draws on a broad dispute resolution mandate. 
DISECs are often activated to respond to land and other disputes between or within 
communities or families, using mediation, conciliation and arbitration. 
To a more limited extent, other actors involved in CBDR include those in the formal sector, such as 
Senior District Officers (SDOs) explicitly vested with dispute resolution authority in the local 
governance system, and members of sub-district Village and Ward Development Committees (VDCs 
and WDCs), intended to facilitate grassroots participation in development planning; and the informal 
sector, like community paralegals, faith leaders, mammy queens, okada (motorcycle) rider unions, 
and market traders’ associations. Notably, these CBDR structures are recognized at community level 
but not always well-linked to one another, and no national agency is tasked with overall oversight or 
monitoring. In Pujehun, a WFP-led, PBF-funded initiative is currently building a new infrastructure 
for inclusive dialogue around land conflict (in Makpele and Malen chiefdoms). 

Due to conservative and gerontocratic social norms and systematic forms of exclusion, young 
people, and especially young women, are least likely to possess the leverage or patronage to claim 
rights, address grievances, and resolve disputes through CBDR mechanisms. While young people 
make up 80% of Sierra Leone’s population, their autonomy, agency, and political and economic 
power is severely limited; collectively, they experience the structural and psychological exclusion 
rooted in reciprocal mistrust of duty-bearers and power-holders (as identified, for example, in The 
Missing Peace: Independent Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security). Especially in rural and 
peri-urban areas, young women and men lack the sababu needed, for example, to find redress for 
abuse in a paramount chief’s court, or mobilize the SLP for protection when they experience 
violence. This leaves youth more vulnerable to insecurity and injustice, and it ensures that young 
people are seldom active participants in community-level conflict resolution, with often conflict generative implications. Indeed, Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) noted 
that marginalization of youth, especially rural youth, and arbitrary and capricious application of 
customary law by the chieftaincy, were among factors that gave rise to the civil war. 

The intersection of generational and gendered exclusions means that young women are doubly 
disadvantaged. For example: about half of all Sierra Leonean women are victims of sexual and 
gender-based violence (SGBV) in their lifetimes. Customary law reifies discriminatory attitudes 
and behaviours that deny women justice for SGBV; incidents of sexual violence are often regarded 
as local “disputes,” to be settled between families in private with money changing hands, thereby 
disincentivizing women to report SGBV, and leaves offenders with impunity. Victim-shaming is a 
particular risk for young women, who may be blamed by community members (including older 
women) for bringing sexual violence or harassment onto themselves because of occupation, lifestyle 
or dress; young women may be deterred from seeking justice in community-based fora that afford no 
privacy, or place them at risk of vendetta-driven witchcraft accusations. Whereas customary 
institutions like women’s secret societies may be able to support older women seeking justice or 
dispute resolution, younger women have fewer options for leverage. 

The lack of youth participation in local-level CBDR is mirrored by the general weakness and non-inclusive implementation of conflict prevention policy at national level. Despite political 
commitments and donor investments (including, notably, UN PBF-funded initiatives), there is no 
dedicated, nationally-owned conflict prevention and resolution architecture. ONS plays a central role 
in a national early warning and response capability under the NSC, but multi-stakeholder cooperation 
around conflict prevention related to electoral cycles has not translated into a coherent policy or 
infrastructure for peace. This is especially concerning given that Sierra Leone will enter another 
contentious electoral cycle over the next three years. 

The systematic exclusion of young women and men from CBDR disables their active citizenship and 
potential contributions to a more stable social contract. The risk that unresolved conflicts could be 
destabilizing has grown. A 2020 Afrobarometer survey16 found only half of Sierra Leoneans satisfied 
with government performance preventing or resolving violent community conflict, and only 20% 
meeting needs of youth. The absence of inclusive mechanisms that deal with power and resource-sharing among Sierra Leone’s people at community level will aggravate local conflict, and a return 
to instability remains a significant risk. To create an enabling environment for young women and men, working intergenerationally, to encourage active citizenship and collectively influence conflict prevention practices at local and national levels, contributing to a more inclusive and peaceful society for all Sierra Leoneans. 1- 360 young women and men (min. 180 female, 120 people at each site), members of youth-led CSOs, CBOs and networks. They will be selected on the basis of their knowledge, skills and existing circles of influence by youth-led CSOs and CBOs pre-screened by Cordaid and YPPD. and empowered through leadership training. 

2 - 9 youth-led CSOs, CBOs or networks (min. 1 at each site) will be sub-granted to support research and advocacy activities. They will be selected on the basis of representativeness and local legitimacy with young people in the communities they serve; project implementation track records; and integrity. 

3 - 240 members of CBDR providers (min. 60 female), including paramount chiefs, sub-chiefs, chiefdom speakers, local court chairpersons and record-keepers, Customary Law Officers and Local Court Supervisors (lawyers supervising the operations of local courts at provincial and district levels) and District Appeal Courts (to which local court appeals are directed); LPPB members and SLP CROs; DISEC members; LAB personnel; and, in Pujehun, personnel associated with the WFP-led land conflict dialogue mechanisms. Other CBDR providers, 
such as SDOs, VDC and WDC members, local mammy queens, and CAB personnel, may be invited to participate based on the input of youth-led CSOs and CBOs). CBDR providers will benefit from dialogue, RAPs, and improved public perception and legitimacy.