Sierra Leone: ADF Approves $20m Grant to Support Youth and Women Employment

The grant, under Pillar 1 of the Transition Support Facility, seeks to address the underlying causes of instability and insecurity in Sierra Leone.

The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund, the concessional arm of the African Development Bank Group, has approved a $19.95 million grant for a project aimed at improving the livelihoods of women and youth in Sierra Leone.

The "Job Creation for Youth and Women in Climate-Smart Agriculture Value Chains and Waste Management" project focuses on value chains where young people and women are more active, such as cassava and fisheries.

The grant, falling under Pillar 1 of the Transition Support Facility, seeks to address the underlying causes of fragility and insecurity in Sierra Leone. Furthermore, the Global Center on Adaptation will provide a $159,600 grant for technical assistance in developing adaptation strategies, encompassing waste management policies.

Ms. Halima Hashi, the Country Manager of the Bank Group in Sierra Leone, underscored that a significant 70% of the beneficiaries of the project will be women, thereby advancing gender equality and economic empowerment.
Specifically, the project will focus on:

• Enhancing entrepreneurial skills in smart agriculture and waste-management value chains;
• Improving access to funding for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), economic groups and cooperatives led by young people and women;
• Expanding market access for youth and women-led MSMEs;
• Building institutional capacity to improve the business environment and service delivery for entrepreneurs.

Key targets:

• Improving funding access for 700 MSMEs;
• Strengthening entrepreneurial and digital skills for 2,500 people in the cassava and fisheries value chains (70 percent of them women);
• Training 1,000 people in waste-management value chains (250 of them women);
• Facilitating business linkages between 700 MSMEs and large businesses;
• Creating a digital marketplace benefitting 5,000 smallholder farmers and 4,850 value chain MSMEs.

The primary objective of this initiative is to generate 9,200 employment opportunities, bolster the climate change adaptation capabilities of 3,500 young individuals and women, and achieve a minimum 10 percent increase in MSME revenues.

This initiative aligns with Sierra Leone's BIG FIVE Agenda and medium-term National Development Plan (2024-2030), which aims to generate 500,000 new employment opportunities for young people by 2030. Additionally, it supports the African Development Bank's Ten-year Strategy (2024-2033) and its Country Strategy Paper (2020-2024) for Sierra Leone.

July 03, 2024