AYV News, August 9, 2024
Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr met with the World Bank’s Third Inclusive and Sustainable Growth Financing DPO Technical Mission to Sierra Leone and discussed key priority areas for support, aligning with FCC’s Transform Freetown-Transforming Lives 2024-2028 Development Plan.
The Plan aims to facilitate the creation of 120,000 good green jobs for women and youth. It was a constructive engagement and FCC is pleased that the World Bank intends to consolidate and scale up successful interventions in afforestation and waste management.
The journey to transform Freetown by transforming lives begun with the launch of the Transform Freetown – Transforming Lives 2024-2028 Development Agenda, a strategic roadmap by FCC to address the structural challenges of Freetown through investments that support economic growth and create 120,000 decent jobs by 2028.
Mayor Aki-Sawyerr said in developing the agenda, the FCC engaged with and collected input from relevant stakeholders, including development partners, civil society, parliamentarians, NGOs, representatives from devolved sectors, religious and political leaders, professional and academic groups, and 4,800 Freetown residents across 48 communities.
The Transform Freetown-Transforming Lives Development Agenda builds on the achievements of the 2019-2022 Transform Freetown plan and is focused on 4 clusters- Climate Action, Heritage Tourism, Digital Economy and Human Capital Development.
In the next four years, it will pull efforts together on a number of critical pathways including investing in reforestation, green energy, and clean air expanding investments in solid and liquid waste management value chains, undertake informal settlement upgrades, city regeneration and green urban mobility, promoting Freetown as a destination city with a focus on heritage sites, cultural festivals and the creative arts, improving access to digital skills, investing in the enabling environment for digital transformation, improving access to water, health outcomes at primary care level and access to food via urban farming.