The Bumbuna Dam is a concrete-face rock-fill dam on the Seli River near Bumbuna in Tonkolili District, Sierra Leone, and from the capital of Freetown, the main consumer. The country's first hydroelectric dam, it supports a power station.
The site for the dam at Bumbuna Falls was first identified in 1971, and construction was begun in 1975. Work was halted in May 1997, about 85% completed, due to the Sierra Leone Civil War, and did not restart until 2005. The project was completed and went online in 2009. Nearly a third of the dam's US$327 million cost ($103 million) was supplied by the African Development Bank. A 26 January 2005 report noted that 33 villages would be affected by the dam, although only one (of 16 households and 135 people) would require resettlement.
The dam has a maximum height of , a length of at the crest and a volume of . The volume of the reservoir created is , or . There are two Francis turbines, each rated for .
After completion, the project has been plagued with problems, and barely produces or as of 2013.
A second phase is planned, for a power station. In June 2011, the government announced it had awarded the $750 million Phase II project to Joule Africa, a UK-based company. This will entail a second dam and plant. Construction was set to begin in 2014 and continue on until at least 2017.