SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

As in most other developing countries, Sierra Leone has been experiencing since her independence a high and perhaps increasing concentration of population and economie activities in the Freetown Area and severe disparity in welfare among different regions in the country. In response, the Government of Sierra Leone adopted a series of measures to promote a more decentralized and spatially

"balanced" development. Sorne of these measures are directed at influencing the location of manufacturing establishments as they are viewed as the prime determinants of spatial development.

This study has assessed the location and spatial structure of the manufacturing sector in Sierra Leone by using both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Firstly, the spatial hierarchy of Sierra Leone's settlement system including its functional complexity has been functionally measured. Secondly, the study has analysed changes in the spatial pattern of industrial location during recent years by evaluating the extent of inter-regional manufacturing concentration and specialization.

The study in- chapter 3 analysed the extent to which the Government's industrial policies and certain locational factors have influenced the exis ting pat te rn of indus trial location in Sierra Leone. It is argued that the import-substitution strategy of industrialization adopted by the government at the time of independence is at the root of the existing industrial locational imbalance. Import-subs ti tu ting indus tries are capital intensive and import-oriented and the port city of Freetown which also serves as the nations' capital has been the obvious location for them.

During the "quick" rush to modernization in the 1960s, no proper consideration was given to industrial planning and in particular, the overwhelming importance of small and medium-scale industries seems to have been sadly neglected.

Although the process of industrialization has been pursued in Sierra Leone since 1949 and considerable efforts have been made in order to achieve rapid industrial growth, its role in the economy has been rather modest. Its shares of employment and in GDP are low and given the present difficulties in sustaining the previous rates of growth in output, the implication for future employment - growth are not too encouraging. Industrial activity scattered throughout the rest of the country is characterised by small enterprises emerging from a cottage industry level and orien ting their production towards supplying local markets wi th products that do not call for advanced manufacturing techniques.

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From a qua li ta ti ve view point in chapter 4, the ma tri x of functions has assessed the level of development of the various levels of Sierra Leone's settlement hierarchy in terms of bath the leve! of basic infrastructure and the functional distribution of the manufacturing sector in the country. The results demonstrate that Freetown, the capital, is the uncontested economie, political and administrative centre of the country, ranking highest in all the distinguishing variables with a centrality index of 2186 whièh is over three times the index of the next largest settlement. The scalogram analysis indicates the uneven pattern of manufacturing location with the small-scale industries more generally distributed while the large-scale industries are highly concentrated in Freetown. The analysis of isopleth formation using the Guttman scale has enabled identification of zones of influence and points of solidarity between the human settlements. For instance the bipolar and tripolar solidarity between Bo and Kenema on the one hand and Makeni, Port Loko and Mageruraka on the other can form the basis for the development of these settlements into regional industrial growth pales. The analysis also shows several economie sub-zones which operate almost independently of each other.

Furthermore sorne periphery and marginal zones are deprived of real services centres.

The quantitative analysis used the shift-share analysis and the location quotients to measure changes in the spatial pattern of indus trial loca tian during the period 1981 to 1986. As far as inter-regional distribution of industry is concerned, various

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indices indicate -that the nation-wide ·concentration of manufac-turing marginally decreased during the period. The shift and share analysis indica tes tha t despi te the overall national decline in industrial employment of 21 per cent ( a loss of 2092 jobs), only the Northern province was able to record a positive regional employment growth of 12.2 per cent during the period 1981 to 1986.

On the ether hand the Southern province suffered the worst decline with a loss in industrial employment of 64.8 per cent. The increases in the total shift components for all the regions (except the Southern province) was accounted for more by the differentiai shift components indicating that despite the overall dismal national industrial performance, location advantages were enjoyed by most of the regions. The poor national industrial environment reflected in the deteriorating macro economie climate accounted more for the sharp industrial decline than any other factor.

Although the trends in industrial location are results of both market forces and government polie y, i t is possible to conclude that the industrial location policies have been largely unsuccess-ful in narrowing disparities among regions.

In the case of manufacturing specialization the location quotient and weighted matrix analysis reveal complementary results vis-a-vis regional specialization in manufacturing. While the Western Area is generally most specialized in capital-intensive,

import-substituting industries relying on imported raw materials the Northern province specializes most in the location and production of food, beverages and tobacco products. Similarly,

while the Eastern ~rovince specializes mostly in the production of wood products, the Southern province is most specialized in repair of mo tor vehicles and mo tor cycles and textiles, weaving apperal and leather industries during the period 1981 to 1986.

Overall evaluation indicates that the government's incentive policies have so far provided a "poor" basis for a comprehensive indus trial location polie y. This and ether examples of serious inefficiencies generated by the existing industrial location policy imply that not enough thought has been given to the rationale of these policies. Our exploration of their ramifications reveal that a thorough overhauling is required in the approach towards locational concentration of industry in Sierra Leone. For the successful implementa ti on of such a polie y, i t is important tha t the supporting incentives policy must be backed by a complementary infrastructural investment strategy and a committed public sector support. In effect, a comprehensive and judicious indus trial location polie y should be encouraged in order to achieve grea ter spatial equity in rural development and meaningful national economie growth.