- Feed Sierra Leone (Agriculture)
- Human Capital Development
- Youth Empowerment Scheme-500,000 jobs creation
- Revamping the Public Service architecture
Technology and infrastructure
By: Mohamed M. Sesay
Having religiously gone through the Sierra Leone People’s Party 2023 Manifesto dubbed as the People’s Manifesto, it gives one a reassuring comfort and hope for the recoup of Sierra Leones economy despite the global threat.
It is an absolute truism that remarkable progress has been made in the last five years of President Bio’s administration particularly in achieving the goals set in the 2018 New Direction Manifesto. The recently launched Sierra Leone People’s Party 2023 Manifesto, has redirected its focus for the next five years to consolidate those achievements and institutionalize them to ensure sustainability and prevent any potential setbacks. As referenced in the 2023 People’s Manifesto, an indelible assurance has been pinned for the completion of all ongoing programs under the New Direction agenda.
With the 2023 People’s Manifesto, the Sierra Leone People’ Party is in its vim and vigor to build upon the progress achieved so far and propel Sierra Leone further towards sustainable development and prosperity. The goal of the 2023 People’s Manifesto is to create a solid framework that will ensure the continued advancement of the country and capitalize on the potential for growth and positive change in the years to come. The 2023 People’s Manifesto was narrowed down to five specific priority areas dubbed as the ‘Big Five’ with agriculture taking the lead this time.
Feed Sierra Leone is the leading component under the ‘Big Five’ which is an initiative to boost agricultural productivity in order to secure food security and inclusion. It has been made lucidly explicit in the SLPP 2023 People’s Manifesto that the uppermost priority for H.E President Bio’s second term is to ensure that Sierra Leone is food self-sufficient within the next five years. Ideally speaking, Sierra Leone’s dependence on food importation makes the country very vulnerable. In a very tuneful and memorable manner, the Presidential Candidate for the SLPP has assured that the next SLPP Government will definitely boost agricultural productivity to fuel inclusive growth, boost food production, reduce hunger, boost export earnings, create jobs, and build resilience.
The 2023 People’s Manifesto has put forward strategic objective which geared towards; increasing government budget allocation to agriculture to at least 10% , develop policies to make local production of rice competitive, invest in research to boost the yields of priority crops like rice, cassava, cocoa, coffee and cashew, as well as livestock productivity, expand area under rice cultivation through mechanization and irrigation in the rice bowl of the country, Provide financing options to de-risk private sector investment in processing and value addition, include key agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer on the list of essential items, develop financing and insurance schemes to encourage production from small holder farmers in horticulture among others.
The Human Capital Development which aimed at nurturing skills for 21st century industry is the second priority in the 2023 People’s Manifesto for the Sierra Leone People’s Party. Just as it was boldly and emphatically prioritized in the 2018 New Direction Manifesto, the 2023 People’s Manifesto has also joined the bandwagon in prioritizing Human Capital Development through quality education. It was visibly evident with international acknowledgement that in the past five years, the Bio-led administration made tremendous gains with the Free Quality Secondary Education flagship. The Free Quality Education added tremendous value to Sierra Leone’s educational system with phenomenal pass rates in the university entrance examination in recent times.
The 2023 SLPP People’s Manifesto underscores the creation of equal opportunity for women across all facets of life as a core goal of the human capital development agenda. Fixated assurance has been placed in the 2023 People’s Manifesto for the SLPP Government to continue building on the Gender Equity and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) ACT 2022 to support women’s active and productive participation in government and in the private sector.
For the next five years, the 2023 People’s Manifesto has placed focus on translating these gains into developing a highly skilled labour force that is ready for the 21st century industry. The People’s Manifesto is self-possessed to focus on reducing the missing middle in the country’s labour force. The 2023 People’s Manifesto equally pledges Sustain government budget allocation to education, continue to expand access in primary and secondary education, invest in Foundational Learning, provide free sanitary pads to girls in schools , continue to invest to attract women in STEAM courses, Provide funding from Technical and Vocational Training in universities and other formal Government sponsored training institutions, implement the Sierra Leone Health Insurance Scheme to expand access to health care and reduce out-of-pocket expenditure, extend free healthcare services to all school-going children nationwide among others.
The third commendable action point in the 2023 People’s Manifesto is the Youth Empowerment Scheme which is embedded in a Presidential initiative geared towards creating 500,000 jobs for the youth in five years. The 2023 People’s Manifesto acknowledges that persistent youth unemployment poses a big threat to sustaining economic growth and stability.
The People’s Manifesto is in top gear to harness the energy of the youth to create an inclusive and lasting prosperity in Sierra Leone. The next SLPP Government assures of establishing a Presidential initiative for job creation for the youth that will aim at creating 500,000 jobs in the next five years. As indicated in the 2023 People’s Manifesto, these jobs will include skilled and unskilled, long term, as well as seasonal jobs across all sectors. Additional commitment to achieve the following goals includes;
To provide targeted incentives (tax and non-tax incentives) for the private sector to hire youths, set aside a special fund to reimburse costs of hiring, training and upskilling youth incurred by private sector, adopt a Government policy that encourages the inclusion of youth in public work and infrastructure projects, establish a Youth Opportunity Centre in every district headquarter town to support youth in their quest to get employment, to provide access to capital for youth that wishes to start their own venture etc.
The Fourth priority in the 2023 People’s Manifesto is to revamp the Public Service Architecture. The People’s Manifesto perceives the Public Service as the backbone for driving transformation in Sierra Leone. Since assuming office in 2018, the New Direction government has developed a Civil Service Training Policy to provide the general framework for comprehensive capacity building in the public sector and the running of the Civil Service Training College.
The 2023 People’s Manifesto is committed to reforming the public service and focuses on delivery, fosters a culture of professionalism, meritocracy, and continuous improvement to enhance its effectiveness and efficiency in serving the people of Sierra Leone. The supposed goal is to build a Public Service that attracts and keep the country’s brightest talents to be at the forefront of tackling the hardest challenges.
The 2023 People’s Manifesto Pledges to review the policy and legal framework for public service to make it more professional and attractive to Sierra Leonean professionals who would like to work for Government, establish a centre of Government delivering unit in the Presidency with a coherent connection to smaller delivery units in line ministries, improve incentives to support productivity and merit-based system in recruitment and progression of the workforce, introduce standardized exams for recruitment in the Public Service, strengthen the Performance Management of MDAs by review the existing frameworks and developing Performance Management Policy etc.
The fifth and final priority focus in the 2023 People’s Manifesto is Technology and Infrastructure, a Pathway for Sustained Economic Growth. The Peoples Manifesto underscores that technology and digital innovation is a vital enabler and presents the greatest opportunity to accelerate transformational change in Sierra Leone. In the last five years, the SLPP Government established Directorate of Science Technology and Innovation (DSTI), and together with the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) have laid the foundation for Sierra Leone to benefit from the power of technology and innovation to deliver services and growth of the economy.
The People’s Manifesto pledges to expand the Switch to include all commercial banks and other financial institutions, to build the infrastructure to support and operate digital payment options, to establish a national Data Centre and cloud computing Infrastructure for Government data and content hosting, develop a national digital addressing system to promote e-commerce, to protect personal data in digital transactions and communications through Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) (Certificate Authority) to promote trust in online transactions, to use the post office infrastructure across the country as service centres for digital financial inclusion etc. With all the aforementioned ‘Big Fives’ Game Changers in the 2023 People’s Manifesto, is a redefining moment for Sierra Leone’s economic prosperity and viability.
