The Promise and Pitfalls of Security Sector Interventions: Examining the Medium-Term Impact of Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone

Abstract

ABSTRACT Development practitioners and scholars have touted security sector reform (SSR) in Sierra Leone as a model for intervention. Twenty years after such reforms began, the West African country presents one with the opportunity to study the medium-term impact of SSR. This article argues that specialists should consider this SSR along five dimensions: security institution building, military reform and integration, internal security reform, professionalization, and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. This study further explores the impact these factors have had on security performance and legitimacy in the two decades since their implementation. Finally, this work concludes with an analysis of the current state of the security sector as well as a consideration of the lessons to be learned from the Sierra Leonean experience.