By: Rabih Torbay
I came to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this year with a promise to myself: no social media posts about how honoured I was to meet this person or that person.
Well, I lied.
Because this week, I had the incredible honour of spending time with some real heroes—people who are literally changing and saving lives in Sierra Leone every single day.
At UNGA, I had the opportunity to spend time with Dr. Austin Demby, Sierra Leone’s Minister of Health; Dr. Mustapha S. Kabba, Chief Medical Officer; Dr. Uche Ralph-Opara, Project HOPE’s Chief Health Officer; and Josephine Garnem, Executive Director of the Healey International Relief Foundation.
Dr. Demby is someone I have known since his days at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I also spent time with Dr. Kabba, a Chief Medical Officer who does not take no for an answer, and Dr. Mariama Mustapha, who leads the National Coordination Unit for the 300 Days Campaign.
But this was not just about meeting old friends, making new ones or listening to another presentation at UNGA. It was about witnessing something extraordinary.
I lived in Sierra Leone from 1992 to 2001, during some of the darkest years of its civil war. I remember a country devastated by conflict, where health facilities struggled to function and some of the world’s worst health indicators were a daily reality.
When I arrived in 1992, life expectancy was around 43 years. Approximately one in four children died before reaching the age of five, while maternal mortality was among the highest in the world.
Today, life expectancy has risen to approximately 62 years, while under-five mortality has fallen by nearly two-thirds.
Perhaps most remarkably, maternal mortality has fallen by 79%, from 1,682 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 354 in 2023—one of the steepest declines in the world.
Think about that for a moment.
A country that endured a brutal civil war, followed by Ebola and enormous economic and development challenges, has achieved one of the world’s most significant reductions in maternal mortality.
But what I heard this week was even more inspiring.
Earlier this year, following a commitment by President Julius Maada Bio, Sierra Leone launched its 300 Days of Activism for Triple Zero, an ambitious campaign built around three goals:
– Zero preventable maternal deaths.
– Zero preventable infant and child deaths.
– Zero zero-dose children.
As Dr. Demby often says: “No pregnant woman or child should die because of what we were supposed to do that we didn’t do.”
That simple statement captures the essence of the campaign. It is about responsibility, accountability and refusing to accept preventable deaths as inevitable.
And they are delivering.
In the first 200 days of the campaign, recorded maternal deaths fell by 31.3% compared with the same period last year. Child deaths in 28 reporting hospitals fell by 11.7%. In addition, 9,209 children who had never received a vaccine received their first immunizations, exceeding the campaign’s original target.
But what impressed me most was not the numbers. It was the people behind them.
Throughout our conversations, Dr. Demby, Dr. Kabba and Dr. Mariama Mustapha kept reminding us that every number represents a person. Every statistic is someone’s mother, child, wife or loved one.
And that is what drives them.
They are not simply managing a health system. They are challenging it to do better, holding it accountable, identifying what is not working and refusing to accept preventable deaths as inevitable.
Every maternal death is reviewed. Every failure is an opportunity to improve. Every week brings another chance to save lives.
We live in a world where it is sometimes easier to explain why something cannot be done than to figure out how to do it; where excuses and naysayers can drown out ambition; and where countries are too often defined by their most difficult chapters.
For Sierra Leone, those chapters include a brutal civil war, unimaginable atrocities, Ebola, corruption and decades of devastating development indicators.
But that is not the whole story of Sierra Leone. Not even close.
We owe it to countries like Sierra Leone to recognize their achievements with the same attention we give their crises.
Progress is possible when political commitment is translated into action, when leaders refuse to accept the status quo, when health workers are empowered to deliver and when the necessary resources are made available.
Of course, there is still a long way to go. Too many mothers and children continue to die from preventable causes, and sustaining these gains will require continued investment and commitment.
Partners and donors should be proud to be part of this journey. Their support matters enormously.
I am also incredibly proud that Project HOPE and our team in Sierra Leone have had the opportunity to contribute to this progress.
But let us be clear about where the credit belongs.
It belongs to Sierra Leone, to its political and health leadership and, above all, to the thousands of Sierra Leonean health workers who show up every day, often under incredibly difficult circumstances, to care for their communities.
They are the real heroes of this story.
Having witnessed some of Sierra Leone’s darkest days, I cannot begin to describe how proud I am to see what its people are accomplishing today.
And I could not be happier to have broken my UNGA social media promise for them.