By Alimatu Jalloh
The European Union Ambassador Mr. Manuel Müller and Head of Cooperation Mr. Gerald Hatler met with the Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education Dr. Moinina David Sengeh and his team to discuss possible areas of intervention for the European Union grant of 35 million Euro to the Sierra Leone’s Education sector.
The meeting was held on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 in the minister’s office, New England Ville in Freetown.
Ambassador Müller said they have engaged other line ministries that will benefit from the grant, noting that their support will span out for four years.
He said they are planning to allocate Twenty million Euro as budgetary support to the ministry that will disburse five million annually and the remaining fifteen million will go to a multi-donor trust fund for further implementation of projects that the government prioritizes.
The Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary School Dr. DAVID Moinina Sengeh suggested that four million Euro from the fifteen million Euro could be used to unlock the LEGO Foundation outcomes fund on Foundational Learning, which according to him, will trigger eleven million euro from LEGO Foundation.
“We are thinking about means by which our money can unlock more money. It is important that we have non-budgetary activities,” he said.
He said one of the Ministry’s priority areas is school feeding and encouraged the EU to improve on the school feeding programme that the ministry is implementing.
The EU Head of Cooperation Mr. Gerald Hatler said the idea of using part of the remaining fifteen million to unlock funding from LEGO Foundation is in place because LEGO itself is a European Company.
The EU is a political partner of Sierra Leone. The special link between Sierra Leone and the European Union is reflected in the successive Conventions and partnership agreements signed between the European Union and the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group of countries, to which Sierra Leone is a party.
*Augustine Sankoh*
*Strategic Communications Analyst MBSSE*
*asankoh@education.gov.sl*