New York City, US, Tuesday 24 September 2019 – His Excellency President Dr Julius Maada Bio has reminded colleague Heads of State at the high-level political forum on sustainable development summit in New York that they must intensify efforts at achieving the SDGs.
He disclosed that facts from the voluntary review at the forum this year had revealed that global poverty figures had stayed around 1 billion, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for the largest share.
“Sierra Leone’s Medium Term National Development Plan aligns with the 2030 Agenda for SDGs. We have prioritised SGD 4, which deals with quality education for all, and SDG 16, which covers justice and strong institutions, because we see them as accelerators for national development,” he said.
He said to that end, the country continued to invest 21 per cent of the national budget in free quality education programme, adding that his government had particularly focused on access, quality, retention, completion and post-completion initiatives for at least 2 million children irrespective of gender, ability, socioeconomic status or region.
“Sierra Leone will keep working towards its SDGs’ targets. We are convinced that multilateralism holds great promise for us all in spite of the challenges. We also call on partners to align their development assistance with priorities we have set out clearly in our national plan,” he said.
The President also stated that while the country had earned the renewed confidence of development partners, including the International Monetary Fund, they would continue to make business-friendly reforms to expand private capital investments and increase domestic revenue, rationalise expenditure and clamp down on corruption.
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