By zainab.joaque@awokonewspaper.sl
Freetown, SIERRA LEONE – Vice President Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh has said that the government would continue to support human capital development by not only safeguarding but building on the gains they have made. He disclosed this during his keynote address at the launch of the Sierra Leone Human Capital Review published by the World Bank on March 25th 2024, at the Foreign Service Academy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. The Review: Maximizing Human Potential for Resilience and Inclusive Development, provides critical insights into the country’s efforts to foster human capital development and economic growth. The review examines the current state of health, education, and social protection systems in the country and offers recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of human capital investments. “If we go back to the review our focus is not to safeguard the gains but to build on the gains so that the indicators we saw today we need to improve on them. We also need to build the bridge between human capital investment and productivity.” For government to build that bridge, they need to grow the economy to enable them construct the link between the investment they have made with human capital and their investment to unleash the potential of the productive sector that will enable them sustainably continue to finance their development aspiration. He pointed out that, the review is not an end in itself but calls for action, an action for them to sit with development partners to rethink the nature of engagement and particularly the challenge that poses in building the bridge between human capital investment and the productive sector. The present administration he said accord top priority to human capital development as one of the Big Five Game Changer on Public Sector Reform will essentially identify all the bottlenecks associated with social delivery systems thereby getting the public sector to a stage where it can match their vision. In addition, government he said has taken steps to improving the healthcare infrastructure across the country by introducing initiatives from the nutritional level, on education they have seen increased enrolment and pass rate and on social protection the World Bank has been very supportive. Even though education carries huge spending from the national budget, they are aware that parents still have out of pocket expenses irrespective of government’s intervention, but that they will now have to focus more on higher tertiary education due to the growing passes in public exams. “We have to invest more in higher education and correspondingly create the opportunity for job creation and the only way to address all of this is to improve the economy. If you want to do additional investment particularly in social capital you have to have resources” Vice President Jalloh said. The review he said spoke about cross cutting issues which he referred to as “the ecosystem” and that indeed additional investment is required. Adding that, it also stressed that need for Sierra Leone to safeguard its human capital gains as deficit in the health and education will hinder the productivity of the next generation workforce. “To safeguard the gains that we have made we have to improve the socio-economic ecosystem because if you have a country, that is taking 22 percent and put it in education and 11.2 percent in health, expanding social protection systems that goes with additional investment, expanding water, now subsidizing everything” he pointed out. This he said is huge for the country’s national budget at a time when the revenue base is very low, the ecosystem he said needs to improve thereby deepening and expanding their investment in the social sector. Commenting on increased fragility within the region, this he said needs institution building that can ensure inclusiveness for social stability, emphasizing that there is no social stability without social inclusion and they are working towards reducing fragility. In her statement, Trina Haque, World Bank’s Regional Director for Human Development for West and Central Africa, congratulated the Government for prioritizing investments in the human capital of its population, which is one of the Big Five Game Changers for the administration. “Sierra Leone has seen considerable progress over the past two decades in education, health, and social protection, despite confronting numerous crises. I was struck by a graph showing the trend in life expectancy, which after years of not changing, increased steadily from around 45 years in 2000 to around 60 years now, catching up with regional averages” she said. She however, highlighted the government’s policies such as the Free Health Care Initiative and Free Quality School Education (FQSE) have contributed to continued improvements in access to essential health services and basic education. Furthermore, she recalled that in 2008, only 25 percent of mothers delivered in a health facility, which increased to 83 percent in 2019. Also, before the launch of the FQSE program in 2018, about two million students were enrolled in pre-primary to senior secondary school, and this very quickly increased to over 2.5 million in subsequent years. Finance Minister, Sheku Fantamadi Bangura promised to undertake critical interventions into the sectors within the human capital ecosystem as the human capital index speaks volumes of how much effort is needed in transforming the people. “It behoves us to pay attention if we want to drive the aspirations of the youths. Over the years what we have done is to redirect the funds of government investing in these aspirations in education, health and social spending and ensure that we monitor the delivery of those services” he said. These sectors he added have been prioritized in the 2024 Budget and the Big Five Game Changers also put emphasis on human capital development and to achieve this they will continue to collaborate with relevant entities. The ministry he said will look at the findings with some sense of purpose because some of the indicators require them to push more. “The recommendation is well taken and we will make sure that they do not stay on the shelf we will integrate them into our programs urge that the review is widely disseminated and urge colleagues to ensure that they act on it.” ZIJ/27/3/2024