The Right to Access Information Commission (RAIC) in Collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, and with funding from UNESCO,
has on Friday 25th June 2021 held a Technical Discussion and Review of the 2020 Sustainable Development Goals {SDG} 16.10.2 Public Access to Information session at the Family kingdom in Freetown.
In his Keynote address, the Minister of Planning and Economic Development (MOPED) Dr. Francis M Kai Kai spoke about the technical session and proceeded to explaining details about the SDGs. He said the SDG program is a 15- year plan (from 2015 to 2030 called Agenda 2030) and there are 17 global goals. According to him, Accelerator goals have been chosen by MoPED and they include SDG 16.10.2 on public access to information which he said was contributed to this year’s Voluntary National Review Report to the UN and for which he profusely thanked the RAIC and all those public authorities that cooperated with them in the data collection processes. The minister ended by thanking the participants for their participation in this educative activity and kindly asked them to promote Access to Information while pledging to do the same.
In his Welcome and Opening address, Chairman and Information Commissioner (CIC) of RAIC, Dr. Ibrahim Seaga Shaw said that he felt pleased to inform the MDAs that this present commission started the UNESCO survey on SDG 16.10.2 which relates to Public Access to Information in 2019, did one in 2020 and has recently completed it again this year. Dr. Shaw said the data collected and contributed to the UNESCO survey for 2019 and 2020 demonstrates that the Commission has made a steady progress in all the sub indicators of this SDG target such as Proactive Disclosure of Information, Freedom of Information Requests, records management, and the hiring of a public information officer. Dr Shaw noted that compliance with this SDG target by public authorities would help strengthen good governance and bolster economic development in Sierra Leone. He further observed that in addition to taking part in an annual UNESCO survey, section 41 of the RAI law also mandates the Commission to produce an annual report that should contain the status of compliance with the law by all public authorities.
In his vote of thanks to wrap up the opening session, RAIC Executive Secretary, Hon Mustapha Braima, thanked the MOPED minister and his Director for policy and Research for making it to the event despite their very busy schedules. He also thanked the participants for coming and called on them to get prepared for what is set to a be very educative and useful technical session.
During the technical session, Dr. Sheka Bangura, Director of Policy and Research at the MOPED presented the centrality of SDG 16.10.2 adding that Sierra Leone is now presenting its third VNR report on SDG implementation. Director Bangura also said that Sierra Leone is reporting the highest number on the SDGs. "MoPED has remained strategic in our approach to the SDGs," Dr Bangura said. He highlighted progress on the rest of the focus SDGs for the 2021 VNR} process: SDGs 1 2 3 5 8 10 12 13 & 17. Goal 16 stands for Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions ie to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development; provide access to Justice for all and builds effective accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
RAIC CIC Dr Shaw provided a detailed technical review of his Commission’s report on SDG 16.10.2 spanning 2019-2020 contributed to this year’s Sierra Leone VNR report, and this and the presentation by Dr Bangura stimulated a lot of interesting discussions with participants who provided feedbacks, comments and suggestions on how to improve the monitoring and reporting on the SDGs in general and SDG 16.10.2 in particular.
