By Amara Thoronka
Representing President Julius Maada Bio and the People of Sierra Leone at the African Union 37th Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Ethiopia, Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh eloquently presented two significant reports generally geared toward consolidating democracy and development and also repositioning the stance of Africa in global leadership.
“On behalf of His Excellency Julius Maada Bio, I presented two reports at the African Union 37th Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Ethiopia today. Firstly, the 24th C-10 report on the reform of the UN Security Council and secondly the African Peer Review report adopted by the 33rd Summit of the African Peer Review Forum.
In both presentations, I highlighted the progress made in Sierra Leone under the leadership of President Bio particularly to mobilise broad support for the Common African Position in view of the reform of the United Nations Security Council and the efforts to encourage African States to accede to the African Peer Review Mechanism. President Bio was congratulated for his outstanding leadership and the reports were unanimously endorsed and adopted.
Algeria will assume the Chair of the African Peer Review Forum 2024-2026, and I wish President Abdelmadjid Tebboune a successful tenure. I want to thank the Sierra Leone delegation for their excellent work, and the Government of Ethiopia,” the Vice President twitted.
Earlier, Vice President Jalloh shared Sierra Leone’s successes story in Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative which is said to have significantly improved under the leadership of Vice President Juldeh Jalloh. The SUN Secretariat, which promotes nutrition and mitigate malnutrition, is under the Office of the Vice President.
“I participated in the African Union High-Level Round Table in Ethiopia today focused on “Addressing Malnutrition: Catalysing Africa’s Transformation Through Enhanced Multi-Sectoral Investments”. I shared our experiences over the years, particularly the innovative interventions to address malnutrition and scale up nutrition in Sierra Leone. We were applauded specifically for our initiatives to create a dedicated budget line for nutrition, and the use of a Multi-Sectoral Information Strategy and Digital Dashboard which was introduced in 2023 to inform and guide policy decisions and actions. I also underlined how nutrition has been vital to our success to improve maternal and infant health,” he said.
Vice President Jalloh and delegation arrived in Addis on Thursday, 15th February, 2024 to represent His Excellency the President [Brigadier Rtd] Dr. Julius Maada Bio and the People of Sierra Leone at the high-powered African leaders’ forum which began on Saturday, 17th February, 2024.
He was warmly received by top officials of the Ethiopian Government and that of the African Union.
Interventions made by the President Bio administration is said to have made positive impacts in curbing malnutrition and hunger, while recent interventions are projected to drastically and progressively reduce malnutrition and hunger.
“The Feed Sierra Leone programme aims to increase domestic food production by 65% and reduce hunger by 50%. Sierra Leone created a dedicated budget line for nutrition.
In Sierra Leone, 26% of children under 5 are stunted with 63,000 children at risk for malnutrition. Since the rollout of these interventions beginning 2016, this has gone down to 23%,” the African Development Bank twitted, tagging Vice President Juldeh Jalloh.
Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Monday, February 19th, 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)