The meeting was chaired by the Deputy Minister in charge of energy and water resources, the Honorable Martin Alex Bash-Kamara. In his opening remarks, the Chairman, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources has set the stage for the meeting with a reminder about the IWRM process that the country started and which led to the validation of the IWRM roadmap on June 20, 2011. He recalled that this meeting is intended to make amendments to the feasibility study document drafted by the consultant for its improvement and finalization.
Representatives of development partners (DFID, UNICEF, UNEP), civil society, private sector, academics took all the floor before the representative of the Regional Partnership. In his statement, Mr. Sidi Coulibaly of GWP West Africa, expressed his thanks to the people and authorities of Sierra Leone. He told actors in Sierra Leone that by establishing a partnership in their country, they must know that they have the option of complying with the rules of transparency, accountability. Mr. Coulibaly said the platform will never be credible and viable if certain categories of stakeholders are left out intentionally. He concluded that next steps are the establishment of governing bodies, the development of a coherent action plan and achievable and raising funds for its implementation.
Vice Minister, the Honorable Bash-Kamara, in his speech put into context the meeting and recalled that the CWP is a neutral platform to help the Government of Sierra Leone to manage water resources sustainably by promoting the IWRM approach. The Deputy Minister reminded the audience about the meaning of the IWRM approach.
The results of the feasibility study were presented by the consultant. This presentation was followed by comments, suggestions for improvement. The speakers unanimously agreed to enter into the next stages of the partnership process and validated the documents subject to the consideration of amendments. Another meeting will be convened in early 2012 to officially launch the CWP and set up bodies. Stakeholders in Sierra Leone want to ensure ownership of the partnership process in the country.