By Kemo Cham
Six years since the end of the deadly Ebola epidemic, the Sierra Leone government has launched the Post-Ebola Recovery Social Investment Fund (PERSIF), a project designed to provide basic social services and support local economic livelihoods and job creation.
The scheme was officially inaugurated by President Julius Maada Bio on Thursday. The two key components and deliverables of the US$12.4 million project include basic social service delivery - medical equipment and medicines for Maternity Centres, Primary Health Units, and Community Health Posts – and local economic livelihoods and job creation with the objective of creating access to finance and support economic activity and cross-border trade.
The West African Ebola Epidemic, which started in Guinea in 2014, spread through over half a dozen countries worldwide. The three Mano River Basin neighbors - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone were the worst affected, between them sharing a death toll of over 11, 000, among a total of over 28, 000 cases.
Sierra Leone alone recorded over 14, 000 cases, with nearly 4, 000 deaths, according to WHO figures.
“Ebola took a heavier toll on our communities where the disease was most prevalent -- especially on our border and some urban communities. Education, a thriving informal economy, healthcare infrastructure, and basic social services collapsed. In the circumstance, vulnerable populations (orphans, the old, the sick, the disabled, women) fared even worse,” President Bio recalled at the launch of the PERSIF, which the government say is a fulfilment of a campaign promise as captured in the election manifesto of the SLPP-led administration.
The president further pointed out that the socio-economic and health indicators since 2014 were still only marginally better in the affected communities, noting that six years on the deep and painful footprints of the Ebola Virus Epidemic were still with Sierra Leoneans.
“To get those vulnerable populations and vulnerable communities on the pathway to inclusive and sustainable development, therefore, we emphasised in various clusters of our Medium-Term National Development Plan (2019-2023) that we must put in place critical enablers of socio-economic development and transformation. These include providing basic social services and the regeneration of local economic activity,” he said.
He went on: “In our New Direction manifesto, we promised ‘efficient and effective management of the state that will make Sierra Leone a significantly better country through, among other things, inclusive politics, inclusive economic growth, inclusive development.’ This means that vulnerable people and vulnerable communities should be accorded an equal chance to thrive. To our minds, uneven investments in development do not make for sustainable development.”
President Bio also noted that the very practical enthusiasm, of his government reworking on that since 2018, demonstrated the premium they placed on the outcomes of the PERSIF project, noting that those results were all critical to the human capital development priorities the New Direction government had set itself.
Minister of Social Welfare, Baindu Dassama-Kamara, emphasised the importance of providing social services in the selected places, restore livelihood and economic opportunities for the affected beneficiaries. She disclosed that the Association of Ebola Survivors was actively involved in the implementation process and noted that the project was expected to improve community response to future outbreaks.
While assuring of the government’s determination to effectively implement the project, Minister of Finance, Jacob Jusu Saffa, said that through effective re-engagement, they had been able to salvage the project, adding that that would go a long way to take care of the Ebola survivors who were abandoned by the previous government.
Country Manager, African Development Bank, Dr Peninah Kariuki, said that the project was special because it addressed special needs of communities affected by the Ebola outbreak by restoring basic social services and reviving local economic opportunities. She also reaffirmed the Bank’s commitment to working with the various partners to ensuring the timely implementation of the project.
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