This compact book focuses on 'human security' as defined in the 1994 UN Development Program report. Wiafe-Amoako concentrates on four of its seven elements, combining them with detailed analysis of post-2002 Sierra Leone legal, economic, and security changes. The country was ripped by civil war during the 1990s, the result of spillover from conflict in neighboring Liberia, blatant ethnic favoritism by Sierra Leone’s rulers, inequitable exploitation of the country’s mineral resources, and the like. More than two million people were displaced. Reestablishing basic security and restarting development proved difficult in the face of multiple challenges. This book is organized into six chapters. The author first puts human security into the 'conflict puzzle.' He then concentrates on political and civil reforms, economic reforms, and personal security reforms. The concluding chapter looks broadly at human security in light of post-conflict policy changes. Wiafe-Amoako interviewed approximately 100 government officials, primarily in the capital and provinces affected by the civil war, in addition to examining statutory changes. . . .Overall, a good summary of recent changes. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections.

CHOICE

Human Security and Sierra Leone’s Post-Conflict Development is an empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated analysis of the political predicament of an African state, Sierra Leone. Although the book is primarily about Sierra Leone, the analyses in it also heavily draw upon the experiences of other post-colonial African states. Dr. Wiafe-Amoako sees ensuring 'human security' as the key for overcoming the challenges faced in Africa by fragile states as well as by those in the post-conflict phase. A new paradigm of thought in our quest for solutions to an old problem, this is a timely book and a must-read for policy-makers and Africanists alike.

- Seifudein Adem Ph.D, associate director, Institute of Global Cultural Studies, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York,

In its country profile, the British Broadcasting Corporation noted that Sierra Leone ‘emerged from a decade of civil war’ which did not only cause the death of thousands of its people, but also a war which was marked with a ‘lasting feature … of atrocities committed by rebels, whose trademark was to hack off the hands or the feet of its victims.’ It is in this regard that I view Francis Wiafe-Amoako’s Human Security and Sierra Leone’s Post-Conflict Development as one of a kind. Even though there are many books and articles which have dealt with post-conflict reconstruction in Africa, none of them has so particularly focused on human security. Of all of a conflict-ridden country’s resources, human resources are the key victim. This is because conflict does not only cause death and incapacitation of people, it also devastates the trust environment, the key mechanism of social capital. This is often to a point where even when open hostility is declared to be over, a sense of fear and insecurity continues to loom over the area concerned, making it difficult for survivors to return home to resume normal life. I thus recommend Human Security and Sierra Leone’s Post-Conflict Development to government officials and their development partners as well as college and graduate instructors and students with an interest in Sierra Leone in particular and Africa in general.

- Ben K. Fred-Mensah, Howard University,