Sierra Leone’s Statistician-General of Statistics Sierra Leone, Andrew Bob Johnny has been unanimously elected to represent Sierra Leone on the UN Statistical Commission.
This will be the second successive term Sierra Leone will be serving on the UN Statistical Commission, the highest statistical body of the UN.
Mr Johnny, whose four – year tenure on the UN Statistical commission starts effective January 1, 2024, was recently in New York to attend the 54th session of the UN Statistical commission.
“I feel honoured to be elected to serve on the Commission. There can’t be any better way to start my tenure as SG than this. I will therefore give my best to ensure I raise the flag of Sierra Leone sky high on the commission.” Mr Johnny remarked.
He said recently took over the helm as SG/CEO of Stats SL, replacing Prof. Osman Sankoh (Mallam O), who had also served on the UN Statistical Commission for a three – year term.
In a similar development, Statistics Sierra Leone has concluded 4 days Regional Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP), under the Harmonising and Improving Statistics in West Africa Project (HISWA). The SEP, funded by the world bank under the HISWA project, assembled stakeholders in the North West at Portloko, North East at Makeni, East at Kenema and South at Bo.
This SEP follows the engagement that started in the Capital, Freetown, two weeks ago targeting stakeholders from Market Women’s Association, Traders, Students, Teachers, The Forces, MDA’s etc.
Making a statement and a presentation at each of the engagements across the country, the Statistician General / CEO of Stats SL, Andrew Bob Johnny, emphasized that, in-as-much-as HISWA is a national/regional project, it is also a community-based project since the communities where Stats SL operates are the target beneficiaries. He encouraged them to take ownership of the project to ensure it succeeds.
The HISWA Project’s Environmental and Social Safeguards Specialist, Hindolo Momoh, enlightened attendees at each of the meetings on stakeholders’ identification, mapping and involvement in the project, as well as the grievance redress mechanism (GRM), through which concerns and complaints at the project implementation sites can be channeled.
The SEP sought to engage stakeholders at the project implementation sites across the country to get their buy-in before the commencement of critical project components like the construction/Remodeling of the Stats SL HQ on Tower-Hill which is starting soon, alongside construction in the other district headquarter towns where Stats SL has offices.
