Anthony Kamara: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 14 September 2018:
Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella, Member of Sierra Leone’s Parliament for Constituency 062 – Samu Chiefdom, and Chair of the Parliamentary Select Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, left the shores of Freetown yesterday, Thursday, for New York to participate as a judge for the Hult Prize at the United Nations Headquarters.
Held in partnership with the United Nations Office for Partnerships (UNOPS), the one million-dollar Hult Prize seeks to unlock the desire of young people to change the world through business.
The 2018 Hult Prize Challenge which seeks to harness the power of energy to transform the lives of ten million people, has since its inception engaged a global community of over 2.1 million college and university students.
Former United States President Bill Clinton will present the award to the winner at the United Nations on Saturday, 15 September in the presence of 500 special guests. Dr. Yumkella joins an eminent panel of CEOs of major global corporations and UN Agency Heads.
Dr. Yumkella will then proceed to Kigali, Rwanda to where he will deliver a keynote address at the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds (CIF) Scaling up Renewable Energy Program (SREP) initiative, scheduled for 18-19 September.
The CIF is a $8 billion investment facility that accelerates climate change mitigation projects, by empowering transformations in clean technology, energy access, climate resilience, and sustainable forests in developing and middle-income countries.
Dr. Yumkella will return to Freetown to join Sierra Leone’s delegation attending the Seventy-Third Session of the 2018 United Nations General Assembly (73rd UNGA).
A former UN Under-Secretary-General, Dr. Yumkella was also the founding CEO and Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the Vienna-based Sustainable Energy for All, after having served two four-year terms as Director General of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
Follow the finals live at www.hultprize.org
Binta – Dr. Yumkella knows his country very well even before he became a presidential candidate. He travelled the length and breadth of Sierra during his time as Director-General through the many projects he brought home. He also traveled the entire country during his campaign for President. I happened to join him in all those travels.
The fact is that we as Sierra Leoneans seem content with the status quo, even if it is not working and has not worked since independence, if I might say.
Anthony,
Dr. Kandeh Yumkella is part and parcel of the status quo that you are referring to. You just have to look at his political circle to get what I am saying. Fact is, Sierra Leoneans are too smart to fall for cheap politics. That is why they voted in the right candidate. Watch as Sierra Leone rises in West Africa.
If Dr. Kandeh Yumkella had traveled throughout Sierra Leone half as much as he has done throughout the globe in the last three years, he could have garnered far more than the 6.9% presidential votes that he got in the presidential elections this year.
The man knows the world far more than he knows his country. Not good.