Ethiopia to visit Sierra Leone to ‘take lessons’ from the President’s Delivery Team

Senior Ethiopian government officials have written to Saidu Conton-Sesay, Chief of Staff, commending the work of the President’s Delivery Team (PDT) and expressing their interest in visiting Sierra Leone to ‘take lessons from the operations of the PDT’. This was following the Tony Blair Institute’s inaugural Africa Delivery Exchange in March, a benchmarking and best practice forum, which brought together public sector leaders from around Africa, to share their experiences of service delivery. In Sierra Leone, the PDT is responsible for ensuring the progress of the President’s Recovery Priorities – the investment programme initiated after Ebola and the commodities price slump. It is headed up by the Chief of Staff. At the Africa Delivery Exchange, the PDT came in for particular praise from Muktar Kedir, Ethiopia’s Head of Social and Good Governance Delivery Support, which is part of the Office of the Prime Minister. He has subsequently written to the Chief of Staff saying: “My team and I were very impressed with the discussions and the work of the President’s Delivery Team in Sierra Leone. We would like to take lessons from the operations of the President’s Delivery Team. In particular, we would like to get first-hand experience on what the day to day functions of the delivery unit look like.” His team is expected to be in Sierra Leone in the last week of May. Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Team Leader for the PDT said: “As the biggest service provider in the country, improvements in public service delivery positively impact the lives of millions of Sierra Leoneans. Across the continent, there are exciting and successful examples of innovations in the sector. By sharing these with each other, we have more chance of achieving outcomes which meet the particular needs of our countries and citizens.”