During Panel Discussion… Statistician General Highlights Sierra Leone’s Strides & Gains towards Gender Empowerment

By Foday Moriba Conteh

Prof  Osman Sankoh,  commonly known as  Mallam O, who happens to be the Statistician General and Vice Chair of the UN Statistical Commission,  was  among other participants that took part in a high-level round table discussion including the visiting Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, Ms Asa Regner, who also doubles as the Deputy Executive Director of UN Women.

The panel discussion was held in the conference room of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and was chaired by the Minister Prof David Francis.

It could be recalled that Ms. Regner, was on a working visit to Sierra Leone alongside Ms. Oulimata Sarr, the Representative and Regional Director of UN Women for West and Central Africa.

The meeting discussed amongst other things the status of Sierra Leonean women in the socio-economic development of the country and the strides towards gender empowerment.

In his contribution, Mallam O. referred to his recent talks at the UN Commission for Population and Development on the digital divide and another at a PARIS21/UN Women conference on financing gender statistics.

“For Sierra Leone, the time is tight,” he said. “We have political champions and a specific Ministry for gender and children’s affairs. And we have a National Statistics Office which has placed premium on digital data collection, hence it is possible to disaggregate data by sex and make such data available for policy and planning processes,” Mallam O stated.

Among the high dignitaries present were the Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs, Deputy Minister of Finance II, Director of Research at MoF, DG of MoFAIC, Assistant IGP and the UN Resident Representative.

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