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SIERRA LEONE'S MEDIUM TERM NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN (MTNDP) 2024 - 2030
The Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) has launched a new Medium-Term National Development Plan (MTNDP). Unlike the previous plans that were implemented for five years, the new plan will be executed for a period of seven years spanning 2024-2030, in order to be fully aligned with the remaining period of implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, summarised in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The current plan is highly strategic and prioritised, drawing from crucial lessons learned in the implementation of the previous plan, the MTNDP 2019-2023. The new plan is focused on the Government’s Big Five Game Changers that constitute the country’s overarching agenda for 2030 and give strategic direction to the plan.
The Game Changers are: Big 5.1 Feed Salone, aimed at boosting agricultural productivity to ensure food security, inclusive economic growth and social stability; Big 5.2 Human Capital Development, focused on delivering inclusive skills and a healthy population for the 21st century demands through scaled-up investment in human capital development; Big 5.3 Youth Employment Scheme, catalysing democratic sustainability, economic productivity and national security aimed at supplying 500,000 jobs for youths in the next five to seven years; Big 5.4 Technology and Infrastructure, focused on increasing investment in infrastructure, technology and digitalisation; and Big 5.5 Transforming the Public Service Architecture, to ensure efficiency and professionalism in the public sector to achieve effective service delivery and maximised development results.
Crucial lessons have been learned in the implementation of the previous plan 2019-2023 that are important for the current acceleration and transformative plan to deliver a resilient and robust economy for Sierra Leone by 2030. About ten months into the implementation of the previous plan, the world entered into chains of cataclysmic global crises, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019/2020 and the war in Ukraine, in a series that has continued to date with especially debilitating effects for weak economies like Sierra Leone. Therefore, prioritising domestic production processes and revenue mobilisation has become more critical if the country is to build a national capability to robustly respond to future shocks in pursuing sustainable development. It suggests that sustainable growth and development requires optimal placement of the people at the centre of financing for development, while not compromising sectoral coordination and nonduplication of public activities in the management of scarce resources. The need for deepening development cooperation and multilateralism has never been more critical, as well as getting prioritization and sequencing right in furthering judicious use of resources and transforming the economy. Having an integrated financing framework informed by constant analytics of resource options is fundamental to achieving sustainable development; a framework within which ensuring the constant pursuit of innovative financing and production of optimal bankable projects is crucial. It is additionally instructive that gender sensitivity, women’s empowerment and advancing climate resilience should be a continuous guiding principle in pursuing paths to sustainable development.
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