Closing Address by President Ernest Bai Koroma at the Consultative Dialogue no the Path to Prosperity
Closing Address by His Excellency the President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma.
Conference On Setting the vision for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation in promoting Agriculture, Fisheries and Industrial Development in Sierra Leone, Bintumani Hotel, 13 November 2013
Courtesies
We mandated this conference to set out a five year integrated and comprehensive program and action plan for promoting agriculture, fisheries and industry in our country. I am reliably informed that all participants have demonstrated great commitment to achieving this objective, and we now have a rough draft of what needs to be done. I applaud all of you for your worthy contributions. We appreciate the participation of international guests, including World Bank, CGIAR, FARA and CORAF. We also applaud the contributions of our compatriots, the special advisers, my minsters and staff of the MDAs. You have all done a great job.
I am here again to reiterate my Government’s commitment to actions for meeting the objectives of this three-day landmark conference. I have been informed that participants looked into almost all aspects of the task at hand and came up with specific actions relating to the challenges we face. This is laudable. But let us also be aware that it is only in an ideal world of unlimited resources and capacities that we can do all that needs to be done.
This is why we need to prioritize, we need to choose, we need to identify and carry out those actions with greater cross cutting impacts that are valid to our vision of Sierra Leone becoming a middle-income nation in 22 years.
We have noted the criticisms made against many conferences and seminars. But this process will not be just another talk shop. This seminar will be different. We will ensure this by setting up a mechanism at the highest level within the Presidency for following through on the comprehensive integrated program and action for agriculture, fisheries and industry. We have already started work on securing funds and capacities for the actions of the comprehensive integrated plan for agriculture and agro industry; we will continue to work harder on securing the finances through internally generated revenue streams, through partnerships with the private sector and our development partners.
From the statements of the development partners during this conference, I know they are ready to be part of this journey. This nation values your partnership; this nation appreciates your contributions, and we call on your continued support for the actions we will take to achieve our aspirations.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we will stay the course, we will establish reporting and accountability mechanisms through integrated results based monitoring and evaluation frameworks coordinated from my office, with effective participation of our development partners, civil society and the private sector.
We have noted the need for establishing a national innovative research system with responsibilities for conducting innovative research along the entire agriculture and agro-processing value chain, and for adapting innovative techniques for meeting our objectives. We will act on this, and we call on the research institutions here present, CGIAR, FARA CORAF/WECARD to support with us in this venture.
We will take action to establish innovative funding mechanism for agriculture and agro-processing that recognizes the unique challenges faced by actors within the sector. This may include re-activation of a national development bank to promote access to finance for farmers, artisanal fisherfolks and others with proposals to add value and secure markets for their products.
We have made enormous progress in the Agriculture sector. A joint assessment mission of the FAO, WFP and others stated that there has been a general increase in major food crops during the last five years by an average of 33 to 40%. As noted by the World Bank in their presentation at this conference food imports into this country fell by about 90 million dollars in 2012. My government has ensured the almost complete disappearance of the inherited three months hunger season, and we are almost at the point of rice self sufficiency though the major challenge in this area is the lack of large scale packaging and marketing.
This is why we will emphasize an integrated approach. Increasing production is not enough, we need to ensure processing and value addition to realize the huge promise inherent in our agro-ecologies. As one of the participants noted, we need effective financial, institutional and technical reforms or FIT, and my government is committed to actions for these reforms along the full value chain in ways that ensure ever green agricultural growth.
We note the absence of middle level workers, from food technologists to marine mechanics and lab technicians. This warrants the establishment of institutes dedicated to training this backbone of the transformation that we envisage. We will act to overcome this challenge.
We have noted all the specific actions that have great potentials for building the capacities of agriculture, fisheries and industry, from the establishment of a fish harbor complex, to evergreen agriculture scaling up activities, developing aquaculture, promoting school farms and improving the quality of the teaching of science in our schools. We will ensure actions on these challenges and many more.
Importantly also, we must build the entrepreneurial spirit of our people. We have been unable to reap the full contributions of the thousands of scientists, agriculturists, engineers and others this country has trained since independence. This is because our tertiary institutions have not paid attention to instilling the entrepreneurial spirit amongst our graduates. It would be great to see many of the graduates of Njala becoming farmers; many of the graduates of Fourah Bay College starting viable independent engineering firms; graduates of IPAM collaborating to form business entities; and the graduates of the other emerging institutions instilled with a I-can-do-it spirit.
Government alone cannot take this country to prosperity. The burden of ensuring prosperity must be shared by all of us; especially those amongst us whose education and privileged positions this society has facilitated. We have been given a lot, so we must give much more. Those charged with the responsibility of ensuring the success of the integrated plan must resist the temptation to take the lion share of the resources we shall be putting into the scheme. My government will ensure that this does not happen. That is why I warrant a final comprehensive plan that entrenches the principle of subsidiarity; we must ensure that the support goes to the lowest optimal level possible.
I have firm faith that together we will succeed; that together we will tap the wealth inherent in our agro-ecologies; and that together, we will bring prosperity to this land that we love.
I thank you for your attention.
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