Road geohazard risk management – Sierra Leone case study

This project aims at assessing the current capability of various key institutional actors, but primarily the Sierra Leone Roads Authority, in Sierra Leone’s roads and transport sector, with the intent of evaluating their capability to formulate and implement policies and plans in the area of road geohazards management. Financed by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) through the World Bank, the project also involves a physical assessment of potential risk sites along a number of major road corridors in the capital, Freetown, primarily through observation of both naturally occurring and human-generated activities and events around these sites. The project evaluates both institutional and technical capacity, as well as examine climate change-related issues such as landslides and flooding that are negatively impacting the urban transport infrastructure.

The project evaluates both institutional and technical capacity, as well as examine climate change-related issues such as landslides and flooding that are negatively impacting the urban transport infrastructure.

The findings of the assessment are used to offer a set of recommendations to the above-mentioned institutions for improving the mitigation effectiveness of their policies, plans and initiatives:

• The recommended action here is for setting up a road geohazard risk management department within the organizational structure of SLRA and a standalone national geohazard risk management agency under the Ministry of Transport and Aviation. This department and the agency will be responsible for setting up a national framework for geohazards and natural disaster; clearly define mandates for supporting institutions; data collection and dissemination; public alerting and sensitization, and coordination of all geohazards and natural disasters as part of their core functions. Road geohazard risk management should be sufficiently provided for in the national budget.
• Those institutions that are currently in charge of managing geohazards and natural disasters should make greater provision in their budgets for financing activities that genuinely mitigate and reduce the risks of geohazards in the long term.