The Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Dr. Francis Kai-Kai, participated in the 2021 United Nations (UN) Common Country Analysis Validation workshop aimed at identifying the “game changing” priorities to accelerate the development progress of Sierra Leone.

The multi-stakeholder workshop was to validate the Sierra Leone Common Country Analysis (CCA) with attendance by members of the Government as well as its Ministries and Agencies, Development Partners, Civil Society, Private Sector and UN Agencies.

The CCA identifies current development issues, challenges and their underlying causes as well as development opportunities to help envision and prioritize issues for the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF). The workshop was held to allow stakeholders discuss and validate the priorities and challenges identified in the CAA as well as the recommendations.

In his opening remarks, the UN Resident Coordinator, Babatunde Ahonsi, said the need for the review of the 2020 CCA became evident as a result of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, which has continued to reshape the development trajectory of the country and, notably, the introduction of new thematic areas that reflect the current global development landscape.

 

He said like the 2020 CCA, the 2021 CCA update revealed progress in building and strengthening national institutions, drafting and enacting new national policies and programmes for better service delivery.

On his part, Minister Kai-Kai said Government views the analytics as fundamental to the country’s national development planning and implementation processes as they are specifically aware that the current UNSDCF (2020-2023) was firmly aligned with Sierra Leone’s Medium-Term National Development Plan (MTNDP) 2019-2023.

“I want to inform this gathering that, in 2018, the UN CCA for Sierra Leone was among the major background research document that guided the formulation of the current Sierra Leone development plan launched in February 2019…

I am therefore profusely happy that we are today, again, working to provide an update to the CCA for Sierra Leone”, said Dr. Kai-Kai.

He noted that the CCA update was also coming at a crucial time when they were beginning to envision the successor plan to the current MTNDP (2019-2023) which would be for the period 2024-2028 and its roll-out.

The Minister said the CCA report would definitely be among the key background documents to consider in informing the preparation of the successor National Development Plan.

During the break-out session, participants reviewed the report. These include the following. (1) National vision and progress towards 2030; Agenda/Commitments under International standards and norms; (2) Political and Institutional Analysis; (3) Macroeconomic Overview; (4) Environmental and climate change/Cross-boundary and regional perspectives; (5) Social Exclusion Analysis, and (6) Leave No one Behind.

The new CCA process would establish and maintain a United Nations Country Team Data and Analysis Repository, which would then provide source material for more frequent analytic products, and generate evidence and analysis that would be responsive to emerging needs and changing conditions in the country.