The European Union Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Manuel Müller and Head of Cooperation, Gerald Hatler met with the Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, Dr. Moinina David Sengeh and his team to discuss possible areas of intervention for the European Union grant of thirty-five million euros to the Sierra Leone’s education sector.

The EU Ambassador Müller said they have engaged other line ministries that will be benefiting from the grant, noting that their support will span out for four years.

He said they are planning to allocate twenty million euro as budgetary support to the ministry that will be disbursed five million annually and the remaining fifteen million will be going to a multi-donor trust fund, for further implementation of projects that the government prioritised.

Minister Dr. Sengeh however, suggested that four million from the fifteen million can be used to unlock the LEGO Foundation outcomes fund on Foundational Learning which according to him will trigger eleven million euro from LEGO Foundation.

“We are thinking about means by which our money can unlock more money. It is important that we have non-budgetary activities,” he said.

He said one of the Ministry’s priority areas is school feeding and encouraged the EU to improve on the school feeding programme that the ministry is implementing.

The EU Head of Cooperation Mr. Hatler said the idea of using part of the remaining fifteen million to unlock funding from LEGO Foundation is in place because LEGO itself is a European Company.

The EU is a political partner of Sierra Leone. The special link between Sierra Leone and the European Union is reflected in the successive Conventions and partnership agreements signed between the European Union and the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group of countries, to which Sierra Leone is a party.