"Interview with Florence Dillsworth", Chairman, Committee of management, city council of Freetown, Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is at present in a state of civil war. Cooperation South spoke with Ms. Dillsworth during her visit to the final Habitat II PrepCom regarding the issues she and her city faces in pursuing urban development, and in providing basic services during a time of conflict.

CS: What is life like in Freetown during the civil war?

Ms. Dillsworth: It is very difficult, because the rebel war is at present still going on. Plans are afoot to hold conferences that we hope will ultimately lead to peace, but we do not know when or if this will happen. Four years ago, before the war, we were a city of 110,000. As a result of the war, our population has grown to somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million. All our facilities are overstretched. These people are displaced persons from the war affected areas, and they are streaming into the city daily. Housing is a serious problem, as is water, sanitation, education, and adequate medical facilities. Providing services is an uphill task. However, we have in Freetown a number of programmes supported by the UN system, NGOs, and missionary groups. In spite of the war, a lot of activities are taking place. Through these programmes we are taking steps to prepare for the rehabilitation of the city.

CS: How large is the role and presence of donors and international agencies in Freetown currently?

Ms. Dillsworth: Many of the large relief and development agencies are present here, because of the war. They are mostly working with the central government, but we in the municipal government are working more closely with these organisations than before so that we have a say in their activities. We are trying to organise their activities so that there is no duplication in what other organisations have done in the past. So many of these agencies come into a situation and have no knowledge of what has been done before, and quite often when programmes are duplicated they pit the energies of local people against one another. We are trying to organise things so that their efforts are more meaningful, disciplined, and productive.

CS: What is the relationship of national government to city government under the present circumstances?

Ms. Dillsworth: The local government in our country is an arm of the central government. We depend on them to a large extent for funding. As you can imagine, because of the war we are not getting the necessary funding, and that situation is affecting all our programmes and services. Hopefully when the war is over things will return to normal, but even then, the city has grown so much that the central government will have to rethink the size of our budgetary allocation. All cities in the country have grown because of the displacement of people from the rural areas where the conflict is taking place, so all municipal budgets will have to grow as a result. We are trying to resuscitate a federation of local councils so that cities and towns will speak with one voice. We hope to get the central government to provide more support--in fact get them to decentralise considerably, and to empower us in the delivery of the services the people expect and which traditionally are the responsibility of local councils.

CS: What is an example of the problems you are having in providing services?

Ms. Dillsworth: I can think readily of fire prevention services. We are not able to do this consistently because of a lack of funds, and when we do get funds, they are woefully inadequate. I can think of many instances where fires started and we were unable to put them out in time, resulting in extensive losses of life and property totalling in the millions. We are now trying to convince the government that they must take this problem seriously. We are also trying to raise funds from the World Bank to rehabilitate the fire brigade and extend its services--we only have one office of operations for a city our size! If there is a fire in the west or east ends of the city, we have trouble getting to the location to put out the fire, and many times it is too late. We hope to involve the private sector in this effort, especially the insurance companies, the oil companies, and the banks. We hope to convince them of the need for a good fire service, which would be in their best interest as well.

CS: Is there a role for South-South co-operation in your current development efforts?

Ms. Dillsworth: We are hoping to do more of this. We have attended a series of meetings, one of which took place in Harare, and another more recently in Accra. We are looking for ways to work together. We are also twinning with other cities. In all regions of Africa the problems are similar, so we are looking for ways we can share. There are also cities in Liberia and Somalia which have faced similar situations in providing services and development during civil strife. As of yet we have not established relationships with them, but we share a lot in common with these cities. I think our best bet is to work on a regional basis--we are forging links with cities in Gambia, Ghana, and Lagos and other Nigerian cities. We in West Africa have a lot more in common with each other than we do with East African countries, so our region seems to be the best place to begin.

CS: "Sustainability" and "enablement"; are two terms that have been used frequently in the cycle of PrepComs leading up to Habitat II. What do these terms mean in the context of your city?

Ms. Dillsworth: Enablement means having the kind of environment created in which we can perform our responsibilities effectively. And for that performance to be meaningful, it must be sustained over time. Unless we have peace in our cities we will not be able to create enabling circumstances. Through the help of international agencies, and our twinning with both the cities of Hull, in the UK, and Hebei, in China, we have gotten a lot of technical and capacity-building assistance in spite of the war. With this we can better sustain our development efforts from the administrative end.

CS: Can you discuss your current and planned portfolio of projects?

Ms. Dillsworth: We have a number of planned projects in health, sanitation, income generation, meeting the needs of battered women and education. We are going out in a big way to create income generating activities because we realise that this is the way people can pay for city services. We want to set up a women’s bank, modelled after the Grameen Bank, that will make small loans initially, and eventually making bigger loans when women begin running bigger businesses. We have applied to UNESCO for assistance with this.

Two other projects are in their infancy. One is for abandoned children who live on the streets. We have set up a centre to help them, with the hope of expanding the number of centres in the programme in time. Currently it mostly attracts boys. They seem to be more trusting than the girls because there are fewer street girls in the centres. We try to create a safe haven for the children that includes medical care, counselling, and perhaps most importantly, a meal, so that they can count on having at least one meal per day. This has going on since June 1995. We know we have made an impact on their lives, but unfortunately we are not yet equipped to provide them with accommodations. This situation tends to undermine the positive work we can do with these children, because at the end of the day we must turn them back into the streets. Ideally we plan to expand the centre, enabling us to socialise the children and make them attractive to foster families, but we do not have the resources to expand the project that far just yet.

In another area we are working with grassroots women through the Freetown Chapter for Women. This programme is a group designed for women and children in difficult circumstances, but we encourage all women in the city to participate. We believe that the women who have done reasonably well have a duty to lend a helping hand to the women who have not. We try to provide education for the women--most of them adults who are past the school age--and we are also charging all of them with registering every girl child above 6 years of age in a school. We have committed ourselves that if you have registered your child in a school, and come September she is unable to find a spot in a classroom due to overcrowding or other reasons, bring her back to us and it will be our responsibility to see to it that she finds a place in a school. If we find that there are no places anywhere in any school, then we take steps to create a school for these girls, using whatever facilities and resources we can find.

Finally, there is a World Bank project in the city--the Freetown Infrastructural Rehabilitation Project--with several components. One component is the development of 6 depressed areas around the city, providing them with roads, water, utilities, and the like. In 1997 this infrastructure will be handed over to the city and we will have to come up with the resources to maintain it.

CS: This is an ambitious schedule of projects, particularly under your present circumstances. Where do you plan to come up with the financing for these activities?

Ms. Dillsworth: Our main sources of revenue are currently from the central government, fees for market use, and property taxes. That is where we plan to get most of our money for the future. For the past 2 years we have put together ambitious budgets, but the people in the city are just not paying taxes. Some of them can afford to pay and aren’t, while some of them can’t afford to pay because their businesses have been so adversely affected by the war, or because they are now unemployed. The government has set up a funding agency to help public institutions generate income for rehabilitation. Plan International, an NGO, is also giving us some assistance.

Recently we had 6 of our markets rehabilitated, adding running water, toilets, stalls, and day care centres. One would have thought these improvements would bring in more revenue for the city, but that has not been the case. The overall economic situation is such that people cannot afford rents for the use of market stalls.

Wherever we turn we are hampered. We are hoping that when the war is over, the government will support local governments so that we can deliver our services. We are making a proposal that a certain percentage of the national budget be put aside for local projects all over the country. We also have a plan for public investment as well. Most of our current budget comes from the central government. However under the present circumstances, with the central government fighting a war, the city is not solvent, and there is not much we can do in expanding our share of national funding.

CS: What is the relationship of public finance to local culture?

Ms. Dillsworth: Not very healthy! I think that local or traditional culture is not patterned after the Western idea of finance and investment. A lot of education is necessary to make people realise that if they want services from the municipalities they will have to pay for them. People want services, particularly those fortunate enough to have seen what is available in the more industrialised countries. But people fail to realise that you do not get these things for free. You must pay for these services, and not only that, you must pay to maintain them, otherwise they will deteriorate. A lot of education is necessary for us to change our culture to understand the mechanics of public finance.

CS: Do you and your colleagues have a vision for a sustainable Freetown in the future?

Ms. Dillsworth: We want a Freetown that is peaceful, clean, and with housing for all. We want to have well-lit streets, busy markets, enough hospitals and schools, and also to have the people participating in the development of the city. This is their city, and I don’t think anybody can develop it for them. I look forward to the time when citizens get the message, and become involved at the planning level so that they can say how they would like to see Freetown develop, and understand what roles they are to play in that development. I think cities must at some point--especially where there is a need for rehabilitation--call civic conferences and get people to say how they want to see their cities develop. I hope to get people to take the responsibility for their city, and to admit that they have to be involved for its development to be successful.

We all want a better climate for development, and I am strongly convinced all of us in the country want peace for the nation. Even the rebels say they are fighting for peace. We are hoping and praying that they will sit down and talk with our government so that we will know what their grievances are and we can address them. This war cannot go on indefinitely. It will destroy the whole structure of our society if it continues.

CS: What do you hope will concretely be accomplished at the Habitat II conference in Istanbul?

Ms. Dillsworth: I am hopeful that out of Habitat, mayors from cities in the South will be able to work together more closely and help each other in practical ways. I hope that developing countries in general will realise how important a part local government has to play in delivering basic services--the most essential services--to the people. Once they have realised that, I hope they will participate in the planning of delivery of these services. Only then can we be really effective in doing the job we have to do in the cities. I am hoping that Habitat II will issue a communiqué that calls for setting up the machinery among international organisations that will bring pressure to bear on central governments. Out of this conference I hope central governments can be made to realise how much more local governments can do in the name of development if they have the right support, financial and otherwise.

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