Mr Bio made the call as he officially unveiled his much anticipated National Development Plan (NDP) which details the administration’s Medium Term development priorities for the period 2019 to 2023.
The document, launched on Thursday at the Bintumani Conference Center in the capital, Freetown, focuses on eight priority areas, including development of human capital and infrastructure, promotion of good governance and protection of vulnerable members of the society, particularly women, children and persons with disabilities. It notably emphasises on mutual accountability approaches that maximise impacts of growth interventions.
The NDP, according to the government, is anchored on the Sierra Leone People’s Party New Direction Manifesto. It’s also the result of a collaborative effort between the Ministries of Planning and
Development and Finance, as well as other ministries, departments and agencies, and development partners.
The government says with this plan, for the first time in the history of the country, a comprehensive results and indicator framework accompanies the national development plan. President Bio, in his official statement at the launch, said that to ensure consistency in the execution of the plan, he had given directives for future annual budgets to be fully aligned to the plan.
“When there is no discipline, no commitment and no political will from the highest levels of power, development will not happen. When there is no structure and no consistency to development activities within the short or long term, development will not happen,” he said.
He added: “When there is no predictability to development activities and outcomes and partners are unsure about how to engage and commit to national development, or worse still, when that partnership does not include continuous dialogue and feedback, development will not happen. When the government is unclear and uncommitted to clearly laid out development outcomes and a comprehensive short and long-term plan, development will not happen. So, my government developed the medium term national development plan to get the development context right
once and for all.”
The total estimated cost to execute the plan is US$8.15 billion. United Nations Country Representative, Sunil Saigal, spoke at the launch on behalf of donor partners. He congratulated President Bio for putting the Plan together and for placing human capital development at the centre of his priorities.
The UN representative also noted that the new plan incorporated the UN Agenda 2030 for sustainable development as well as the African Agenda 2063, adding that in doing so Sierra Leone was setting an example for other countries by blending both global and other African regional goals in development planning.