Sierra Leone Wins MDG Award
By Olusegun Ogundeji – For displaying an outstanding national leadership, commitment and progress towards achieving millennium development goal number 6 – combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, Sierra Leone has been awarded at the MDG summit held at the UN Headquarters, New York.
President Ernest Koroma who serves as Chairman of National AIDS Council received the award on behalf of the National AIDS Secretariat NAS.
This year’s award themed: “The MDGs – the Global Heart beat” aims at supporting and raising awareness on the MDGs by providing a high profiled platform to honour and celebrate exemplary efforts by national governments and civil society stakeholders in advancing international development goals.
The criteria for the nomination and selection of winners was based on initiatives that represented outstanding contributions towards attainment of the MDGs based on factors such as innovation, leadership collaboration, impact, scale and potential for transferability.
Nominations were made in consultation with a range of experts from within and outside the UN system who are closely involved in monitoring the status of MDG implementation.
According to the National AIDS Secretariat NAS, the agency saddled with the responsibilities of stemming the rise of the global epidemic in Sierra Leone, the NAS Director, Dr. Brima Kargbo signed a performance contract with President Koroma in 2008 and 2009 on behalf of all implementing partners to assure the country of the resolve to achieve set out targets.
