Jeneba Bangura, Commissioner General of Sierra Leone’s National Revenue Authority (NRA) has warned thattraditional aid flows to developing nations are drying up, revealing that the country’s annual budget support from the World Bank has plummeted from $\text{\$100}$ million to a projected zero in just two years.
Bangura made the sobering disclosure during a high-level panel at the IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings, underscoring the intense fiscal pressure now driving an aggressive push for self-reliance in Freetown.
“In the past, we received about $100 million a year in budget support from the World Bank,” Bangura stated. “But in 2024, that dropped to $40 million, and as I speak for 2025, we may not receive anything at all.”
She noted that other key partners, including the UK’s FCDO, have followed a similar trend, although the European Union has resumed limited support.
Bangura explained that these sharp cuts often occur after national budgets have been finalized, forcing the government to scramble to “reprioritize and rearrange spending.” This abrupt loss of funding, she said, “intensifies the demand for more domestic revenue.”
In response, Sierra Leone has embarked on a drastic domestic revenue mobilization campaign. Bangura disclosed that the government raised its revenue target by 46 percent in 2024 and is projecting a further 30 percent increase in 2025. Oversight has been intensified, with the finance ministry now monitoring tax collection on a daily basis.
The panel, titled “Taxing Smarter after Aid,” explored the difficult path for countries like Sierra Leone as traditional aid flows dry up. The discussion also touched on the constraints of international lending programs, with experts from Tax Justice Network Africa arguing that IMF conditions limit countries’ policy flexibility and can reinforce inequality.
While Ceren Ozer, a World Bank manager, pointed to nearly $7 billion in active concessional lending projects aimed at boosting domestic revenue, the immediate budget crisis described by Bangura painted a stark picture of the challenges on the ground.
