Sierra Leone’s Chief Minister, Dr. David Moinina Sengeh has delivered the opening address at the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Forum at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, highlighting Sierra Leone’s digital transformation drive to improve the lives of citizens.
He said that Sierra Leone understood that AI and digitization must not only be a pillar of national development, but that governments must ensure equity, and build a more just society, noting that President Dr Julius Maada Bio had shaped that vision within the ‘Big Priorities’ in the National Development Plan.
He highlighted transformative technology and infrastructure as a critical pillar in Sierra Leone’s ‘Big 5’ agenda, with the direct impacts leading to nearly 100% 3G, and nearly 90% 4G coverage with 100% fiber networks in major cities, like Freetown.
The Chief Minister stated that beyond the numbers and the expansion of mobile coverage and fiber lines, Sierra Leoneans now have more access to banking and financing, adding that within the past five years alone, the country had doubled all indicators linked to financial inclusion with more women having access to financing and AI algorithms helping banks offer better financial solutions for citizens.
“Human capital development – quality education for us, healthcare and food security, we know are core to human security.
And in Sierra Leone, we have deployed digital solutions, that help teachers reach most students, and technologies that help support parents to be part of the learning of their children. We have deployed solutions that support our pregnant mothers and over the last decade alone, we have been able to reduce maternal mortality by 80%,” he said, while also discussing Sierra Leone’s reliance on technology during the COVID-19 when all schools were shut down.
He furthered that as part of the government’s food security drive, it had deployed drones to apply fertilizers in farms, even if yet, at a small scale, while also using satellite imagery to study and inform policies to protect the environment. He said with these efforts, his country was showing that impact, and return on investment could be near immediate, and thus the government was looking for partners to work with both internally and externally.
“Those partners are not just being sought out outside of Sierra Leone and we are also looking internally, between the Ministry of Innovation, the Ministry of Education, the Directorate of Science, Technology, and Innovation, and private citizens. Young people, young women in their 20s, like Mama Yokie, of the Kamara Yokie Innovation Center, are shaping what AI should be, not just for government officials, but for students, in faraway remote schools”.
Dr Sengeh, who doubles as Sierra Leone’s Chief Innovation Officer, again spoke about radical inclusion to support everyone reach their fullest potentials. He said technology must be used to breach the gap between the haves and the haves-not, while adding that AI medication should help teachers help students who need it the most, not those who have the most.
