By: James Kamara-Manneh
President Maada Bio has told African Heads of State at the Human Capital Summit that his government is focused on developing youths and giving them the enabling environment to thrive to be productive.
President Bio joined over 1,200 delegates at the Africa Human Capital Heads of State Summit in Tanzania the east African nation’s port city, where he shared Sierra Leone’s landmark investment in its citizens through education, healthcare and agriculture.
“Looking ahead, the focus of my Government in the next five years centres on translating our Human Capital investments into the development of a highly skilled labour force equipped to tackle the challenges and harness the opportunities of 21st-century industries”,he said.
He participated in the panel discussion on the topic: Accelerating Africa’s Economic Growth: Boosting Youth Productivity by Improving Learning and Skills in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
There he was able to highlight the importance of Human Capital Development to harness Africa’s demographic dividend for a united, peaceful and prosperous continent, where he also shares Sierra Leone’s landmark investment in its citizens through education, demonstrated by the substantial budgetary resource allocation to education by my Government.
He also spoke on achievements made during his first five years in office on the free Quality Education as a flagship program that has resulted in an unprecedented surge in school admittance and university entrance examination pass rates.
However, the Summit has been an opportune time to focus attention on Human Capital Development and draw tangible financial and policy commitments, prioritizing investing in people as a core driver of productivity, resilience and growth.
The two-day summit has brought together leaders from across the continent to focus attention and draw tangible financial and policy commitments prioritizing investing in people as a core driver of productivity, resilience, and growth. It will provide a unique opportunity to deliberate on strategies to accelerate investments in learning, health and skills and to secure the productivity of the region’s people as its greatest asset.
The New Direction Manifesto 2023 – 2028, Consolidating Gains and Accelerating Transformation, of the Sierra Leone People’s Party government, prioritises five initiatives as anchors for faster and lasting transformation, key among them is ‘Feed Salone’, which entails an ambitious programme to boost staple food production to drastically minimize reliance on food imports, increase exports, create jobs, boost economic growth and reduce poverty.
The Tanzanian Government called on the participants to discuss how best the private sector could be motivated to actively collaborate with governments as co-sponsors and co-producers of quality human capital, emphasizing that the private sector was a key beneficiary of human capital development efforts.
