AYV News, July 3, 2025
The Government of Sierra Leone is in discussion with the EU to unlock 2025 Budget Support under the Nature Nourishes Programme.
In August 2024, the Government of Sierra Leone, through the Ministry of Finance, signed a one-million-euro financing agreement for the Nature Nourishes programme with the European Union, which includes 65 million euros in direct budget support over four years.
The “Nature Nourishes” Programme is part of the European Union’s Global Gateway strategy, which aims to strengthen Sierra Leone’s resilience against both internal and external shocks, protect the environment, and enhance educational outcomes per the country’s National Development plan.
The main objectives of the Nature Nourishes programme include environmental protection, enhancing education, promoting sustainable agriculture, decentralisation, and public financial management (PFM) reforms.
In 2024, the government benefited a total of eleven million euros from the programme, having implemented key reforms in Education, Agriculture, Environment Protection, and Public Financial Management.
As we enter into the second year of the programme, the government of Sierra Leone is actively engaging the European Union through the Nature Nourishes Steering Committee, which is co-chaired by the Ministry of Finance and the EU.
On Tuesday, 1st July 2025, the committee met at the Ministry of Finance to provide updates on the programme from various Ministries, Departments, and Agencies. Deputy Minister of Finance I, Kadiatu Allie, thanked and welcomed the EU team for the programme and previous support.
She stated that budget support is different from specific project funds, which are tied to projects, but rather go directly into the consolidated fund to be used by the government to fund critical pro-poor programmes on education, health, agriculture, and transfers to vulnerable groups.
Financial Secretary, Matthew Dingie, stated that the government is working very hard to meet the triggers in the programme to unlock a disbursement of up to about 20 million euros in direct budget support in 2025.
“We are far gone in terms of strategy to implement and modify the programme without changing the overall objective’ he added.
Matthew Dingie updated the EU team on the progress of the ECF programme with the IMF, ongoing PFM reforms in both revenue and expenditure and the preparation of the 2025 supplementary budget aimed at reversing 2024 borrowing and revenue numbers on capital projects and debt. He assured them that these cuts will not affect social expenditures and transfers to councils.
Under the variable tranches, and progress reports on specific indicators, the Home-grown school-feeding programme is expected to cover over 123,000 pupils, and the Teachers Training on Foundational Learning is targeting about 14,000 teachers.
Similar progress reports were provided for Environment Projection, Sustainable Agriculture, Fiscal Decentralisation, and Iron Ore Taxation. The next stage of the programme is to conduct an assessment of the reports and a letter to request disbursement.
