The Ministry of Finance of the Government of Sierra Leone and the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) – in collaboration with IFAD’s West and Central Africa Division (WCA) – co-organized a national workshop for the Sierra Leone Country Strategy and Programme Evaluation (CSPE), as a final step in the evaluation process.

The workshop took place in Freetown on 27 November 2019. The Chief Guest was Denis K. Vandi, Honourable Minister for Agriculture and Forestry. Around 60 participants attended the workshop, including Emmanuel T. Komba, Senior Deputy Financial Secretary, Ministry of Finance; Amara I. Sheriff, Chief Agricultural Officer, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry; Samking Braima, Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Forestry; Robert Chankanda, Deputy Minister for Planning and Economic Developmment; and several other representatives from the Government of Sierra Leone. Among the other participants in the workshop were representatives of IFAD Management and staff (including IOE), multilateral and bilateral development organizations, project management staff of IFAD-funded projects and programmes covered by the CSPE, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and selected resource persons. 

The IFAD delegation included the Deputy Director, IOE, the IFAD Sierra Leone Country Director, the WCA Lead Regional Economist, and the IOE evaluation team.

Mr Hansdeep Khaira, Evaluation Officer, presented the key findings, conclusions and recommendations from the Sierra Leone CSPE. These were then discussed in an extensive round of questions and answers, as well as group discussions on the key thematic areas emerging from the evaluation.

The Sierra Leone CSPE national workshop was an opportunity to obtain inputs for the preparation of the evaluation’s Agreement at Completion Point (ACP), the brief document summarizing the main evaluation recommendations and including follow-up actions that the Government of Sierra Leone and IFAD Management agree to adopt and implement.

Finally, the workshop also explored the opportunities and challenges of the IFAD-Government of Sierra Leone partnership in the future.

The workshop was widely covered by the Sierra Leone media.