Creating a Sustainable Smart City in Sierra Leone

British actor Idris Elba is hoping to build an eco-friendly "smart city" on an island in Sierra Leone. The Wire, Luther and Mandela star’s father was from the West African country and Elba is working with locals to transform Sherbro Island, creating income through sustainable tourism and bringing wind and solar farms to a region that doesn’t have electricity.

Idris Elba has long been involved in philanthropy and campaigning as well as the entertainment industry. He and his wife Sabrina created the Elba Hope charitable foundation, working mainly in Africa. He is active in campaigns against knife crime in the U.K.

Elba grew up in London alongside Siaka Stevens, the grandson of a former Sierra Leonean president of the same name. When Stevens shared his vision of the Sherbro Island project, Elba was intrigued. He knows that attracting investment to one of the poorest countries in the world is not an easy task, and that his fame can open doors to help get the project off the ground.

Sherbro Island has a population of 40,000 people and is approximately 600 sq km, about twice the size of Malta. During the colonial period it was first a port for the Transatlantic slave trade, then a base for operations against illegal slave traders after Britain banned the slave trade in 1807. The island was a prosperous port until the 1960s, when shipping moved to the capital Freetown.

The island is protected from erosion by mangroves, which the project plans to increase and is an important site for marine biodiversity, with sea turtle nesting sites and a population of endangered West African manatees.

Since 2019, Stevens’ and Alba’s Sherbro Alliance Partners (SAP) organisation has been in partnership with the Sierra Leone government to develop Sherbro Island. An energy company, architects and planners, transport experts and coastal engineers are all on board.

The original plan of developing tourism has evolved into a more ambitious project aiming to revitalise the island, working with the population to create what the creators call an “Afro-dynamic eco-city”.

This promotional video shows the ambitions of the creators:

The construction of wind turbines and solar arrays is due to start in late 2024. Sherbro Island has never had mains electricity. In fact only 28% of the Sierra Leone population does. But its tropical island location makes it ideal for both wind and solar power. Octopus Energy Generation is keen to use the island as a pilot site, to study how renewable energy can be brought to other parts of Sierra Leone and further afield on the African continent.

Dream Big
The development of the island is a long-term project with no guaranteed success at the end. Elba says, "It's a dream, you know, but I work in the make-believe business. It's about being self-reliant, it's about bringing an economy that feeds itself and has growth potential. I'm very keen to reframe the way Africa is viewed… as an aid model.”