| Summary: | Ebola has provided the greatest test of the Sierra Leonean
security sector – and, in turn, of the UK-led reforms of the past ten-to-fifteen years.
The performance of the country's security forces at the height of the crisis suggests
that there are sound structures in place; however, Ebola has shown that the Government
of Sierra Leone's national security architecture still lacks maturity in responding to
such a scenario. Drawing on first-hand interviews with advisers on the
ground, this article explores the Sierra Leone government’s response to the Ebola crisis
and the performance of the security sector so far, within the wider context of UK-led
security-sector reform (SSR) since the end of the civil war. In doing so, it highlights
a number of lessons to have emerged from the crisis, exploring what these reveal about
the nature of the reforms implemented since the end of the country's civil war. In turn,
it explores what these suggest for future SSR, which continues to be a core component of
the UK’s approach to development and overseas capacity-building.
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