By Politico Staff Writer
In order to assess the level of cooperation, successes, and challenges, a visiting Delegation from the German Development Agency or GIZ has inspected its funded projects across Sierra Leone.
The visit was initiated by the Government of Germany in collaboration with the Government of Sierra Leone.
According to the German Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Jens Kraus-Massè, the visit was to assess projects funded by the German Government with taxpayers’ money through various sub-units in Sierra Leone such as CARE and the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA).
Head of Cooperation, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Freetown, Johannes Behrens said they will be having an inter-governmental negotiation with the Government of Sierra Leone, the first in thirty-two years. He said Sierra Leone has just developed a partnership with Germany which means there will be more intense dialogue with the government and partners here in Sierra Leone.
“To that end, we also need to see what has been achieved within the last years as we are planning the project for the next four years. So we decided to assess the first phase before commencing the second phase. From the few regions we covered, I think the quality of what we achieved here is quite high and it is something we can build on’’, Behrens said.
He said until now they were looking at short-term support and will now shift focus to more structural support.
Fatmata Janka Daboh, a Midwife Tutor and Deputy Head of the School of Midwifery said it is very important that GIZ assesses what they have been doing since the inception of the school. If not for funding from them, the school would not have been where it is today, she stressed.
“One of the numerous benefits we are counting on from this project is the refurbishment of the solar panels, which are now working and providing electricity for us,” she said.
Leonard Dudgbay, Team Lead for Agriculture and Finance Consultant, an implementing partner of GIZ in Sierra Leone said their task is to mainly give training to only farmers but also youths, which can help them, create self-employment opportunities. He said they are working with 4,500 (four thousand, five hundred) farmers along four value chains: cocoa, coffee, vegetables, and rice.
“So, after the training, we also do some business coaching to help them take farming as a business. In Africa, most of our farmers do not see farming as a business, instead, they take farming as a job for the poor, while in developed countries, most of the rich people are farmers,” he said.
Commissioner of NaCSA, Ernest Mbamba Ndomahina, said that they have a project called the GPC 3 which is phasing out, and the GPC 4 which is actually for communities like Rokel.
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