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The Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, is expected to receive the prestigious 2021 Lawrence C. Nussdorf Urban Leadership Prize at a public ceremony in Philadelphia on April 25, 2025.
The award, which will be presented by the Penn Institute for Urban Research at the University of Pennsylvania, was postponed for health reasons during the Coronavirus pandemic. However, it will be handed over to the Freetown Mayor during the 20th Annual Leadership Forum.
Other foreign dignitaries expected to receive a similar prize include Patrick Harker, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and Enrique Peñalosa, former two‑term Mayor of Bogotá and noted urban planner.
Aki-Sawyerr, who has been mayor of the Sierra Leonean capital since 2018, is known for her efforts to combat climate change through afforestation and sanitation and hygiene in her city.
After taking the seat at City Hall, the Freetown Mayor launched an audacious campaign to plant over 1 million trees along the Peninsula Mountains and restore mangrove swamps along the Freetown coast.
Aki-Sawyerr is also noted for building Freetown’s first wastewater treatment plant and nursing the Freetown Cable Car project.
Aki-Sawyerr’s tenure ends in 2028 but it is believed that her ambition goes beyond managing Freetown with some political analysts suggesting that she might vie for the presidency running under her party, the All People’s Congress (APC) in the next election.
I just don’t understand why our mayor has to go to USA to receive urban prize of recognition. Wow. Why your own people couldn’t award you, but you have to go to US for award. Some of you are the ones made these western world don’t have respect for Africans. I mean it. I am Sierra Leonean. Mrs mayor, you don’t have to go to USA for award of urban developments for Sierra Leone. You get what I am saying?