Message from Saidu Conton-Sesay, the Chief of Staff
On the 7 November, we commemorated the one-year anniversary of the end of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone with a nationwide three-minutes of silence. It was a poignant reminder of how urgent the process of recovery and development is in Sierra Leone.
Quality education has a paramount role to play in this and Sierra Leone took a significant step forward this month with the launch of two major initiatives. The first, led by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, is a major programme of classroom building which will reduce severe overcrowding in the worst affected schools, mainly in urban settings. The President’s Delivery Team is also pleased to report the recently launched collaboration between the Ministries of Water Resources and Education, working with UNICEF, which will ensure 360 schools across the country have hygiene and toilet facilities that are fit for purpose. The support of UK aid is invaluable to the delivery of both of these.
To ensure that this delivery process remains both effective and sustained, the President’s Delivery Team is working to enhance and strengthen the capability within MDAs at both district and central level. We look forward to reporting on this in the next issue of the newsletter.
It is the nature of economic recovery that the pace of delivery speeds up as the behind-the-scenes planning starts to yield visible results. At this point in the process, the role of district and traditional leaders, beneficiaries and all other stakeholders in verifying output becomes even more important. We will be going around the country to share with district and traditional leaders the exact location of projects being implemented in their areas, so that they can track them more reliably.
