Sierra Leone Telegraph: 9 July 2024:
After several months of hard work, the Freetown City Council (FCC) Deputy Mayor, FCC Councillors, the Chief Administrator, Council staff, members of the Mayors Delivery Unit and Mayor Yvonne Aki Sawyerr last Thursday came together in a truly inspiring event to launch the Transform Freetown – Transforming Lives Development Agenda 2024-2028.
The Transform Freetown – Transforming Lives Development Agenda 2024-2028 is a product of extensive community engagement, planning labs to solicit technical input from MDA representatives, development partners, academic and professional institutions, the private sector and civil society,
Building on the achievements of the 2019- 2023 Transform Freetown Agenda, the single target for the Transform Freetown – Transforming Lives Agenda is to create 120,000 decent jobs for women and youth by 2028.
According to the FCC, the direct and indirect jobs will result from interventions in 4 clusters: Climate Action; Heritage Tourism; Digital Economy; and Human Capital Development.
One of the highlights of last Thursday’s launch event was the opening performance by pupils of the FCC Early Learning Adventure Centre in Congo Water Market, reminding of the value of early childhood development and the importance of FCC making high quality free education available to the vulnerable children and grandchildren of market women trading in that market.
Early childhood development is featured within FCC’s education critical pathway in the Human Capital Development cluster as one of the children stated eloquently: “The first 8 years has so much to do with how the next 80 years turn out.”
Another key feature of the launch was the FCC tree giveaway. All guests were encouraged to pick up a free tree, take a photo of the tree and upload details onto the #FreetownTheTreeTown tree tacker for monitoring. It was a hit!
“We are most grateful to World Bank Country Manager Abdu Muwonge and to FCDO Director Emma Spicer for their extremely supportive statements. They both spoke of their partnership with FCC in respect of the 2019-2022 Transform Freetown Agenda, highlighting their funding contributions to a range of interventions including #FreetownTheTreeTown (World Bank) and the Kingtom Wastewater Plant (FCDO). I was grateful that they also committed to continue to support FCC to reach our ambitious but achievable target of creating 120,000 decent jobs by 2028! As with the previous Transformers Freetown Agenda, funding for the interventions to create these jobs will largely come from a combination of own source revenue, donor grants, philanthropic donations and private sector investments,” said Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr.
The keynote address was delivered by Deputy Minister of Local Government and Community Affairs Alfred Moi Jamiru who was representing Minister Tamba Lamina in his absence.
In his address, Deputy Minister Jamiru emphasized that the successful implementation of the Transform Freetown – Transforming Lives Agenda will have a positive ripple effect across all districts and encouraged all Freetonians and stakeholders to collaborate with FCC and to embrace the Agenda.
“Today was an important milestone and we are grateful to everyone who participated with FCC to get us to this point. We have set a target, identified our proposed interventions and now over the next 4 years we will implement these, reporting to Freetonians on an annual basis on progress made. We are energized and excited about the positive impacts this Agenda will have on our city and in the lives of our residents. Thank you for joining us on this journey,” Mayor Aki-Sawyerr concluded.
Commenting on the launch of the FCC jobs creation plan, the US ambassador to Sierra Leone said: “Congratulations to Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyer and the entirety of the Freetown City Council as they continue their work to Transform Freetown. Their new five year development strategy focused on creating 120,000 new jobs for youth and women has the potential to truly Transform Lives. The United States will continue to stand in support of the Freetown City Council’s efforts to promote environmentally responsible growth and ensure the well-being of all Freetownians.”
You can read the FCC Job Creation Plan here:
This is fantastic news! Well done Mayor Aki-Sawyerr. I was once sceptical of your stewardship as Freetowm Mayor but now am convinced that you mean well for the people of Freetown in particular and Sierra Leone in general. You have the expertise and skill to pull this off. This is an ambitious plan and I wish you the best.
You have set a very good example for other cities and districts across Sierra Leone to emulate. If each region in the country can have a job creation plan like this, delivered as part of a devolved government framework, we will succeed in tackling joblessnees and poverty in Sierra Leone. Well done and good luck!