Rationale for this project:

Sierra Leone, alongside Guinea and Liberia has undertaken remarkable efforts to fight against the devastating Ebola outbreak. As a result of those efforts and the support of the international community, Sierra Leone has now been declared Ebola free. Recovery must now be pursued as part of the goal of “getting to zero and staying at zero,” as the response changes from emergency operations to multi-faceted, long-term support.

To this end, the New York conference held on July 9-10^th, in cooperation with the Governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and in partnership with the African Union, the African Development Bank, the European Union and the World Bank, took place to ensure that recovery efforts go beyond restoring direct development losses to build back better and ensure greater resilience.

It focused international attention on the need for targeted investments to support recovery priorities (especially on the health sector, energy and governance) over a 24-month time frame. The outcomes include increased international support to the affected countries and region, with concrete financial commitments to support national and regional recovery strategies.

With the total resources pledged for the recovery of the Ebola-affected countries and region amounting to around five billion dollars with approximately USD 1 billion for Sierra Leone, ensuring the concretization of those commitments is primordial.

The approach favored by the Sierra Leone Government as part of the implementation of the National Ebola Recovery Strategy (NERS) is based on the principles of the New Deal and of mutual accountability with development partners (Mutual Accountability Framework).

To better coordinate the multiplicity of financing streams pledged at the July Ebola Conference, the Government of Sierra Leone has approved the establishment of a dedicated financing mechanism, the Sierra Leone Ebola Recovery Trust Fund, to finance the national recovery strategy that provides coherence, speed and flexibility as well as full transparency and accountability.

This project is designed to strengthen the capacities the Government of Sierra Leone for the establishment of a Secretariat to support the day-to-day operations of the SLERF Steering Committee to ensure the efficient and effective mobilization of the resources pledged to Sierra Leone during the New York conference on July 9-10, 2015.