By Janet A Sesay

The Minister of Planning and Economic Development has held two days workshop training for representative from different ministries, Paramount chiefs and Civil society organizations to discuss on frame work on how  they could impact lives of people in the country by improving their human capital development.

This training was held at the Bintumani hotel conference room on the 6 and 7 May, 2024.

In her open statement Madam Kenyeh Barley Minister of Planning and Economic Development said the Human capital development plus (HCD+) is an organization that promotes human Capital Development on the continent and globally.

She said Human Capital Development plus and Africa work together in promoting lives of people  around the continent.

Madam Kenyeh Barley said HCD+ is important to Sierra Leone and the ministry because they have just launch the five year medium term national development plan for 2024 to 2030.

She added that within the medium term development plan they have the big five game changers which involves feed Salone, human capital development which is continuation of the flagship program of the last plan, the youth employment scheme, technology and infrastructure and transformation of the public sector architecture.

Madam Barlay further that the second game changer is very important which is the human capital development and this is related with all the other game changers.

She said when one look at feed Salone they look at the personnel, adding that individuals have to be involved in feed Salone.

She further that humans have to be healthy, educated or have the required skills and so the nutrition section also falls under the human capital development like wise with all of the others for the five hundred thousand jobs needed.

Minister Barlay further that in Sierra Leone we need a strong human capital as we have a demographic dividend who are the youths a d that is why technology, infrastructure, access and also job use in technology are in the plan and that is why they are working very closely with the Human capital development plus to ensure that their is coordination of human capital element.

She said it is not just the traditional human capital development they are looking at but other areas like digitization, access to finance and to put gender at the center.

She further that the ministry can also expand on human capital development in Sierra Leone when all these elements are captured in the plan.

She said the participants learn about human development and they also acquired skills in advocacy and how to resort messages they can take forward both national and sub national.

She said the way forward is that the ministry would be setting up a technical committee so that there would be coordination among all the line ministries and stakeholders in dealing with human capital development.

She further that the ministry take the message down to the districts and chiefdoms so they have a well coordinated structure and sufficient understanding by everyone to ensure that we do improve on our human capital development index.

Before distribution of certificated to participants, adviser to the president professor Tejan Wurie said there has been advocating for this agenda and impact on how communication would be in human capital development frame work.

He said they should relates this to the people of Sierra Leone.

Madam Isata Jabbie Kabba another adviser to the president said she hope that at the next training more women will be among, adding that Sierra Leone can only be developed if people understand the human capital development plus framework.

The Mayor of Freetown madam Yvonne Aki Sawyer in her statement said without human capital development there is no growth neither future in a country.

She said with respect to Freetown which is his own area in her last meeting they focus on human development.

She said they set there development plan for 2024 to 2028, adding that  there target was base on human capital plans.

One of the participants Ivan Augustine Barrier, District Surveillance Officer Kono said this training made him have knowledge on human capital development as he never knew what it meant but only hearing it.

He said they teach them a lot of things on how humans should realized and have full potential to make our country be able to develop.