By Ishmael Bayoh, Information Attaché, Sierra Leone Embassy Dakar, Senegal
Sierra Leone’s Minister of Public Administration and Political Affairs, Hon. Amara Kallon, participated in the Forum on the challenges and reforms of Public Administration in West Africa, held on 27 and 28 March 2026 in Dakar, Senegal.
Organized by the Association of Civil Administrators in Senegal (Amicale des Administrateurs Civils du Sénégal), the forum aligns with one of His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio’s Big Five Game Changers, which is Revamping Public Service Architecture. It seeks to enhance human capital through optimized human resource management, with well-trained and sufficiently motivated staff, in order to ensure an efficient civil service within a stable social climate.
Following the presentations delivered during the panels and discussions, it was possible to identify a set of best practices likely to accelerate reforms in their respective administrations, with a view to modernizing them, enhancing their performance, bringing them closer to users, and improving the quality of public service.
During the plenary sessions, Minister Kallon positioned the reforms undertaken by the Government of Sierra Leone as not only modernizing its public service architecture but also strengthening its governance for sustainable development.
The civil administrators declared at the end of the forum that they would act to improve administrative performance, the quality of public services, good governance, and transparency in the management of public affairs. Among others, they shared the conviction that new information and communication technologies—particularly dematerialization, digitalization, and e-procedures—must henceforth support administrative action in order to overcome bureaucracy, rigidity, routine, and administrative inertia.
A restricted working group, co-chaired by the Presidents of the Associations of Civil Administrators of Senegal and Sierra Leone, and comprising representatives of the other countries, was tasked to initiate the relevant draft texts, organize preparatory international meetings, propose the theme of the next forum, and work with the relevant stakeholders to determine the venue and date of the said forum
