The World Bank Board of Executive Directors has approved a 50-million US dollar grant for the Sierra Leone Resilient Urban Project. The project will improve urban management, service delivery and disaster risk management in cities across the country, according to an article in the Sierra Leone Telegraph. On the one hand, it will address the needs of the capital Freetown as the economic engine of the country, while also catering to the district capitals.
“The lack of defined urban policies on land use and management of public investments continue to hamper sound urban management, particularly in district capitals,” said Gayle Martin, World Bank Country Manager for Sierra Leone, in the article.
The project’s approach to urban development challenges in Sierra Leone include integrated urban planning, infrastructure upgrades, waste management and disaster management. The goal is to develop well planned, financially sustainable and productive urban centres. Sierra Leone’s urban population has almost doubled in the past fifty years, with over 40 per cent of the population now living in cities, writes the article,
One aspect of the project, which complements other government programs, is to enhance the overall waste management system, including the construction of a new landfill in Freetown. Currently, only 25 per cent of the city’s waste is transported to dump sites. The rest is buried, burned or dumped in waterways.
The total cost of the project is just over 56 million US dollars, of which 50 million is financed by the World Bank and the rest from the Global Environment Facility.
