When Sierra Leone emerged from its longcivil war at the beginning of 2002, it had many pressingneeds for recovery and reconstruction. As a consequence,Sierra Leone was one of the largest beneficiaries of foreignaid as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and aid percapita. Since then, as peace has been consolidated, thelevel of external assistance has gradually declined from15.5 percent of GDP in 2002 to 5.2 percent of GDP in 2008 asdonors phase out their post-conflict allocations and GDPexpanded rapidly. This Public Expenditure Review (PER)records improvements in many aspects of economic and fiscalmanagement as well as service delivery. The main message ofthe PER is that the Government's investment plansshould be accompanied by equally ambitious improvements insector policies, budgetary planning and executionprocedures, public service reform and human resourcemanagement. Priorities include continued good macroeconomicand fiscal performance, a more effective public service, andfurther advances in public financial management includingearlier involvement of the political leadership in budgetarydecisions in the budget cycle, improvements in the publicinvestment management system, reduced deviations in budgetexecution, continued procurement reform, better contractmanagement, and deepened accountability mechanisms. Theseissues are reviewed and discussed below. Because of theirprominence in the Second Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper(PRSP-2), the health and roads sectors are reviewed as well.
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