Madam Chair,
Colleague Governors of IFAD,
President of IFAD,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me firstly convey the message of good wishes from our President, Dr Ernest Bai Koroma to this 34th Meeting of the IFAD Governing Council.

In 2003 in Maputo, Mozambique, Heads of State and Governments of Africa unanimously agreed that agriculture is the mainstay of the economies of African countries. Therefore, it must be accorded the rightful attention and support due it. As a result, the Maputo Summit agreed on certain benchmarks in support of agriculture in any given African country:

• Undertake the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) process,
• Allocate 10% of national budgets to the National Agricultural Investment Programmes (agriculture) developed through the CAADP process; and
• Promote an annual agricultural growth rate of 6%.

In Sierra Leone, the new Government started the CAADP process in October 2008 and the long-term (2010-2030) National Sustainable Agriculture Development Programme was developed. And on 19th September 2009, a Compact was signed by all the sector stakeholders (Government, donors, the private sector, including the farmers, civil society, etc.) in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

Like all long-term programmes, the NSADP has to be implemented in five‑year phases; the first being 2010-2014. The Government and partners chose the Smallholder Commercialization Programme (SCP) for this period. The logic of targeting the smallholders in Sierra Leone is that:

The majority of the people of Sierra Leone are poor. The majority of people of Sierra Leone are farmers, predominantly smallholders. Therefore, the best beneficiaries to target to address the UN MDG 1 of reducing poverty and food insecurity are the smallholders!

Our President also set up the Presidential Task Force on Agriculture chaired by His Excellency the President himself and comprising the relevant Government Ministers (Agriculture, Fishers & Marine Resources, Lands, Energy, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Works, Justice), the private sector including farmers, our donor partners, civil society, etc. to policy direction, supervision and review of progress in the sector. Also, an Agricultural Advisory Group has been set up comprising the same representation but at a technical level. This body prepares technical documents such as report for the attention of the Presidential Task Force. At the programme level, there are Technical Working Groups for each of the six components of the Smallholder Commercialization Programme:

• Commercialization of the smallholder agricultural value chain focusing of the prioritized commodities,
•  Small-scale irrigation,
• Market access, especially the promotion of feeder roads and the Purchase for Progress programme of WFP discourages the importation of and promotes the purchase of domestic food items for supply to target vulnerable groups by WFP,
• Agribusiness financing,
• Social protection and safety nets (using humanitarian support to promote agricultural development in the form of food and cash for work on feeder roads, swamp development, construction of post harvest agricultural infrastructure such as the Agricultural Business centres (ABCs), export crop rehabilitation, etc.

The President has increase allocation to agriculture from a inherited paltry 1.6% in 2007 to 7.7 by 2009 and stood at 10%+ in 2010; thus accomplishing the 2003 Maputo Declaration! In cognizance of the above fast developments, in 2009, the President was declared by the AU as the Champion Head of State of Africa for CAADP and I as Champion Minister of CAADP also for Africa!

IFAD support to agriculture in Sierra Leone has been at its best. The IFAD portfolio in agriculture has been the best performing according to our Quarterly Projects Performance Review (QPPR) process in my Ministry. Also, because of the significant improvement in the performance of the portfolio, IFAD's allocation to Sierra Leone under the performance-based assessment system (PBAS) significantly increased (almost doubled in 2010). As if that is not all, the Government has adopted the IFAD approach in rural finance using the Financial Services Associations (FSAs) and the Community Banks (CBs) as a national strategy and therefore was made Component Four (4) of the Smallholder Commercialization Programme (SCP). Undoubtedly therefore, when Sierra Leone was required to choose a Supervising Authority for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP) under the L’Quilla Initiative, we selected IFAD!

On the theme of the 35th Meeting – Investing in youths, the Government has taken serious steps recently to address the issues of the youths in Sierra Leone. A National Youth Commission has been established through an Act of Parliament to chart the way forward to address the needs of the youths in the country. Also, there exists a Youth Parliament in Sierra Leone where youths deliberate on national issues, including those of interest to youths and submit recommendations to Government and other stakeholders. In addition, and for the agriculture sector in particular, Government has adopted the Songhai model of Benin as a strategy to create opportunities for youths and women to be trained, provide start-up support, follow up activities including further coaching and agribusiness financing plus networking to markets so that after training, the youths and women can be profitably self-employed. However, there are challenges in dealing with the youths:

• They want quick results, incomes, turnovers, profits, etc
•  They are currently highly concentrated in the urban areas and have to be moved to the rural areas provided they are made attractive for them to return there!

As a close, I want to welcome the Uzbek Republic and Hungary as new members of IFAD. I was want to take this opportunity to thank IFAD for their support to the development of agriculture in Sierra Leone. I look forward to more collaboration under the Songhai model in Sierra Leone and I hope to receive the President of IFAD during the forthcoming 5th Meeting of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for Africa Rice Development (CARD) in Sierra Leone, 23-24 February 2011.

Thank you Madam Chair.

19 February 2011