Sierra Leone Telegraph: 29 June 2019:
President Julius Maada Bio is in Abuja, Nigeria where he is attending the 55th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The 55th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS will be held today, 29th June, 2019.
The summit will consider among other things, key items for decisions such as the Interim Report of the President of the ECOWAS Commission for 2019, and the Memorandum on Reports emanating from various sectoral Ministers’ Meeting organised by ECOWAS in the region.
Leaving Abuja after the Summit, President Bio will visit Rwanda on the invitation of President Paul Kagame, who is said to be impressed with President Bio’s progressive leadership.
It is expected that both President Bio and President Kagame will share experiences and best practices in governance.
President Julius Maada Bio will also travel to Uganda on a State visit, where he will be hosted by President Yoweri Museveni.
President Bio will deliver a plenary keynote speech at the Block Chain 4th Industrial Revolution conference, taking place in Uganda. He will be speaking as a champion of science, technology and innovation in governance.
It is expected that during the State Visit, both President Bio and President Museveni will discuss technology transfer, healthcare infrastructure in rural areas, natural resources governance, military cooperation and training, tourism investments, and President Bio’s leadership of the Continental C10 for UN reform.
This is President Bio talking here about the use of 3D Printing technology in governance:
The president is going where. Not again! There are a lot of unfounded ramblings and rumblings within the country, especially from the sometime intrepid opposition about President Bio’s travels. However, I don’t think that the honorable president, with all the myriad of issues he has to simultaneously confront and deal with, especially domestically and it appears, he is a “man in a hurry”, for good reason, wakes up one morning and just says to himself and his advisers, you know what, “I think I am going to South Africa today, to the UK tomorrow and to China the next week. Or to the US next month.
In my humble opinion, (I have no inside information about the goings-on in the government, or state house, whatsoever), but from the look of things as well as in my advanced google research, all of these travels are well organized, meticulously planned, and in-advanced international travels must have merited considerable deliberation, attention, input and execution. Indeed, devoid of, off- the-cuff decision-making processes and apparatus. After all, the president has always professed his government’s agenda as that of “purposeful administration”.
In an attempt to revitalize the moribund economy, witness the relentless corruption fight through the no-nonsense, indefatigable chief anti-corruption fighter, Mr. Kaifala, the like the country has never seen before; the development strides (the short-term economic and development goal); the efforts at stabilizing the economy; the re-engagement of international partnerships and the relentless push to enhance the country’s image as a tool in nation building.
Subsequently, the President’s recent travels to Abuja, Nigeria; Kigali, Rwanda and Kampala, Uganda, for example, were all purposefully planned and executed with the utmost deliberation to infuse the government and therefore the country with much needed knowledge-base nation building and processes in what makes these other countries thrive and become successful and maintain their staying power without falling into the monumental corruption demise that has plagued most countries all over the world, but with particular ignominious reference to African countries ever so long with unpatriotic and unabated vigor.
The president must be forgiven, for it seems, he is tired and dissolutioned, like most of his country’s compatriots, with the way the country has been managed and governed for so long ever since it’s inception, not just the immediate years past.
Like the saying goes, it’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. So let the president try his hand in changing the country for the next generation.
Sahr Matturi and reinhard wiecha, I don’t think president Bio is a one-track minded person like both of you. The president is a visionary leader who believes in multi-tasking. I hope you guys will receive treatment for your APC myopia. That disease can sometimes be contagious.
Hello Mr. Koroma, let me first answer that I’m not a Sierra Leonean; and second, that I’m neither a supporter of the APC nor SLPP. And I can assure you – because of my age and my experiences, I’m surely not a one track minded person. You can believe it or not.
Indeed Rienhard. I’m surely not a one track minded person too. Dispute it or not Mr. Joe Koroma. With development MYOPIA, present/urgent/pressing development projects first and unnecessary and idle development projects for the future or later. The Bio administration just have to pay attention to the most urgent needs of the people rather than thinking of those cosmetic technologies of the past/future because, 3D is not something new although it can be useful (Sierra Leone) in the future. But that is a long way.
Our people need mechanised farming techniques to produce more food, clean drinking water, good health care which are development objects you can see clearly near you rather than 3D which is a development object that is farther away and blurry.
So, you are right Mr. Joe koroma in terms of DEVELOPMENT MYOPIA which I believe you are referring to. By the way, the only way to cure it is to STOP asking for those IMF/WORLD BANK debts for austerity which is always a bitter pill for our people. Do you agree with me Joe?
If what you have just described is APC MYOPIA, then all is fine with me. Thank you very much for your insight Mr. Joe Koroma.
What the Bio administration must first of all try to accomplish is to make Sierra Leone an INDUSTRIAL COUNTRY and FOOD SUFFICIENT. Then we can start talking about those BELFULL (as in KRIO) projects such as 3D.
Mr. Joe Koroma there, confused about DEVELOPMENT MYOPIA. Thanks Joe and GOD BLESS YOU for your insight.
Sierra Leone wants to be the number one in 3D technology which is nothing new. Why not pay attention to mechanized farming to produce more food to feed Sierra Leoneans. The poor and hungry people do not have a clue about this technology. They don’t even bother.
So, what is the use right now? What they care about most is to fill the tummies of their families and have good health care. What will happen to this whole idea of innovation of the Bio administration if another government takes over and say, you what, this is not a priority for the country right now. DISCUSS.
I hope the President will pays more attention to mechanized farming at the very least than 3D technology.
Oh, Mr. President, first it was the the project Lungi Bridge and now the block chain technology for the people of sierra leone? that is the future for more transparency and democracy? And the new currency will be the bitcoin? How many normal people have a laptop and permanent access to the internet?
How The ‘Expert’ Consulting Complex Keeps African Governments Stagnant
Published on June 24, 2019 by David Moinina Sengeh
Chief Innovation Officer at Government of Sierra-Leone, Senior TED Fellow.
During the one year in which I have served as Chief Innovation Officer for the Government of Sierra Leone, it has become clear to me that “expert consultants” and “technical assistants” (local and especially international experts) might be one major reason why institutions of African governments have remained stagnated.
In the last year, I have worked closely with several heads of international NGOs and granted audience to dozens of “technical experts” representing those organizations. Dozens of other independent consultants have also engaged with either myself directly or with members of my team. These consultants either come as part of an aid or loan package to the country or as independent agencies who have found a way to promise the government ‘how to solve its problems’ for a stated fee.
I often say that my job in the government is to ask questions. So I do – much to the chagrin of the experts.
“I am sorry, did you say you built those 10 solutions over the last 5 years? How many of them are currently working and being used by citizens?”
“Can we please go back to slide 17? Here it shows that you will do big data analytics- which algorithms will you use? What error rates are we aiming for?”
Questions like this are often met with the answer “I don’t want to get technical right now,” or “Can we take this offline?”
“No,” I often insist, that’s actually why I am here- to be technical. I had conversations like this so often that I had to include as a rule in my office: “Let’s Get Technical.” It’s written on a whiteboard explicitly for all to absorb.
As I have dug deeper and peeled the layers behind words like “big data analytics”, “end-to-end solutions”, “system architecture”, or even “innovation,” I learn that there’s often no technical depth underneath. Many of these experts have never written code in their lives, yet they talk about how blockchain might change water supply systems in Africa.
They have never touched a drone, yet they have opinions on our aerial vehicle policies. They wouldn’t be able to draw up a single architectural framework for data structures, yet if you read their reports, you will find those words there.
The technical experts who get sent to us, dare I say, are in fact generally not “technical”. However, a combination of them using the right words, and the lack of technical expertise within our own governments, is why most of the aid money gets spent back externally on human expertise as consultants instead of building the institutions. It is also why no actual human capacity is built locally, even though this is always a stated goal in these engagements.
To be able to teach, one has to fully and wholly understand a concept. So what?
For development partners, I strongly encourage them to recruit the right technical people to engage governments. That includes people who write code and have Computer Science degrees and not just those with a Policy degree. My sense is that many of these experts like to ‘copy and paste’ programs that have worked somewhere else. So I would recommend that they approach each project and each country with a unique sense of possibilities- from first principles.
For government institutions, capacity building is about investments into technical expertise. This means that the right set of people need to be hired – young, inquisitive, technical minds, given the resources to grow and the freedom to learn by doing. If it means bringing foreign technical experts for a while – that is great but the long term solution always has to be internal and local.
For the current employees of State, particularly civil servants- it is your duty to solve your country’s problems for you and your children. As such the motivation and drive to learn and grown must be intrinsic. I imagine we all join the public service to have an impact on society. To amplify that impact, we must remain hungry to learn and thirst for knowledge in order to solve our perennial societal challenges.
The country expects each of us to ask questions. And the people expect us to get the job done. So let’s get technical and be the experts who will solve our challenges