Stakeholders validate 2021 Update to Common Country Analysis (CCA)

UN Resident Coordinator (RC) Babatunde Ahonsi yesterday joined the Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Dr Francis Kai-Kai to co-chair the 2021 Country Common Analysis (CCA) Update validation exercise at the New Brookfields Hotel, Freetown. 

Addressing Heads of UN agencies, development partners, civil society leaders, and representatives of Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), Mr Ahonsi said that update to the CCA is imperative, especially considering the impact of the protracted COVID-19 pandemic on the country’s development trajectory and emerging challenges in the current global development landscape. 

Describing the CCA as a core integrated analytical function carried out by the UN development system on the situation in the country and regional/cross border issues that shape the context for sustainable development in Sierra Leone, the RC said, "The document highlighted the Government's efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus and protect livelihoods."

However, he noted, "whilst we applaud these gains, the challenges and gaps reported remain enormous and required our collective efforts as development partners and Government."

According to the RC, like the CCA update in 2020, the 2021 update revealed progress in building and strengthening national institutions, and in enacting new national policies and programmes for better service delivery. However, the CCA pointed out how the pandemic and its related consequences, coupled with structural bottlenecks, have challenged the implementation of programmes across various sectors in the country. 

Minister Kai-Kai underscored the importance that the Government attaches to the conduct of periodic reviews and update of the CCA, which, according to him, is very critical in informing the formulation and review of the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.

"The Government of Sierra Leone perceives these analytics as fundamental to Sierra Leone's national development planning processes as we note specifically that the current United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2020-2023 is firmly aligned with Sierra Leone's Medium-Term National Development Plan (MTNDP) 2019-2023," said Dr Kai-Kai.

He hoped that the update would provide an added opportunity to derive more information to articulate the strategic context in which the MTNDP was implemented in the first two and a half years of the Plan. For the Minister, the 2021 CCA update is coming at a crucial time when the Government is commencing planning for the preparation of the successor plan to the current MTNDP (2019-2023), which will be for 2024-2028.

"What this means for us is that the updated CCA report will definitely be among the key background documents to consider in informing the preparation of the successor National Development Plan— we are aiming at commencing the preparation of the Concept Note in the 2nd Quarter of this year to provide ample time for stakeholder engagement," Minister Kai-Kai stressed. 

Participants were divided into six small groups to review the report. These include the following. (1) National vision and progress towards 2030; Agenda/Commitments under international standards and norms; (2) Political and Institutional Analysis; (3) Macroeconomic Overview; (4) Environmental and climate change/Cross-boundary and regional perspectives; (5) Social Exclusion Analysis, and (6) Leave No one Behind.