January 11, 2021
By: Alhaji S. Kondeh
The Minister of Development and Economic Planning Dr. Francis Kai-kai has described as a people centered the medium term nation development plan that has been officially unraveled.
“It is a flagship programme of the President Julius Maada Bio and government. The plan itself was v consultative; we interview more than two million people across Sierra Leone. Every district was covered and almost every chiefdom. So it is the people’s plan”.
Dr. Francis Kai-Kai made this disclosure via a virtual press briefing on 7th January, 2021. He described as a Road map and the outcome of a national consultative engagement. The plan will span between 2019 through-2023,
According to the minister the medium term national development is made up of eight clusters and with about forty three different policy areas which the government is trying to address.
He said the said plan was launched in February 2019 by the President as a flagship programme of his government.
The Minister added that almost every stakeholder was consulted ranging from paramount chiefs to councilors to representatives of community base organizations, none government organizations (NGOs), civil society groups, youth groups and so on.
In discussing the eight clusters cited the Human Capital Development cluster, which is the flagship programme of the president dubbed as ‘Education for Development.’ Next in line was Health which encompasses environmental sanitation and hygiene. Towards strengthening social protection, the minister referred to agriculture, which is about food security.
Other clusters highlighted are economic diversification, infrastructure and economic competitiveness covering energy issues, water resources, transportation systems, waste management, information and communications, presidential infrastructure initiatives and private sector growth.
The next cluster is governance, with emphasis on building public trust in institutions, strengthening local governments and rural development, strengthening security institutions and external relations.
Other clusters focus on empowering women, children, and adolescents, persons with disabilities, youth’s empowerment and migration issues. The minister describes these last clusters as one of the most critical to them.
The Minister admits that the last cluster which is the implementation cluster is the most important.
He said: “For a plan of this nature to come to fruition we need to stress implementation. The implementation now covers how we want to produce result based on coordinating, financing, monitoring and evaluation and development communication.”
Dr. Kai-Kai said the medium term national development plan is aligned to the sustainable development goals 2030 and the 2063 Africa union agenda since Sierra Leone is committed to attaining those goals. The minister calls on the people of Sierra Leone to own the plan since it is reflective of their views. He recalled that decentralization process started in 2019 and it was launched by his Excellency the Vice President, Dr. Juldeh Jalloh, in Kambia and Freetown together with the Freetown City Council.
Speaking on the outcome of the consultative engagements held throughout the country, the Minister said that the team found out a lot of issues, some positive others negative.
On the positives, there is an increased awareness about the medium term national development plan; and what they have achieved so far in implementing the plan as well as the decentralization of the public investment programme.
Another area of achievement is the revitalization of the district development coordinating structures in each district. The next achievement is the alignment of the district development plan to the medium term national development plan.
On the other hand the minister expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of coordination among district development players.
“What we also realized is that the MDAs in each district do not talk to each other, and development needs cordiality” Dr. Kai-kai revealed.
He added that in implementing a plan like this, development communication is the key. He therefore, urged media institutions to not only report the news but to use the development communication model.
In another development, the United Nation has as Sierra Leone to do a voluntary national review report.
According to the Minister, the report will cover Sierra Leone’s achievements with respect to the sustainable development goals, highlighting the challenges, the prospects and the outlooks
“This review report is not just about government but the people of sierra Leone. So the report is going to be very widely consultative,” said Dr. Kai-Kai.
The minister added that the project will start later this quarter, precisely before June and will be presented in July at a high level political forum or virtually, depending on the situation, and the review will also cover the medium term development plan.
“We will also want to review the medium term national development plans because the plan was actually conceived in 2018 when the Bio administration took up the mantle of leadership. It was the manifesto that transformed itself into the medium term national development plan. What we will do is to review that based on our experience over the last two years,” said Dr. Kai-kai.
He assured that the voluntary review report will capture all sector and that all development partners will be involved including the media.
