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CPI April, 2023 = 43.05% Y/Y | Population (2021 Mid-Term Census) = 7,548,702 (Male = 3,727,747 (49%) Female = 3,820,955 (50.6%)) | GDP Growth 2021 = 4.0% | PPI 2018 - Q1 =33.90% Y/Y | PHC Projection 2022 (Medium Variant) = 8,494,260 | Population (National - 2015 Census) = 7,092,113
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Incoming SG and Outgoing SGStats SL is now under the leadership of Andrew Bob Johnny who is the newly appointed Statistician General and CEO of Stats SL. Andrew Bob Johnny who has worked for Stats SL for 29+ years and garnered a lot of institutional memory, took over office in an official handing over ceremony from his predecessor Prof. Osman Sankoh (Mallam O) at a two days staff reflection retreat, awards and Leadership Transition ceremony in Kenema.

Chairman of event and master of ceremony who also doubles as Director of Communication and PR at Stats SL,Samuel Ansumana, underscored the importance of the epoch making event in the annals of the institution.

Giving a talk on the purpose of the event, Mahawa Kondeh , Senior Human Resources manager, said that this event brought staff together to reflect on the last 5 years,recognise deserving staff for long service as well as transition the reigns of leadership of Stats SL.

Succinctly presenting on timelines, key achievements and work plans, Directors from all divisions and heads of departments presented on how far they have come, where they are, and what's the way forward with their strategic work plans for the year 2023. Each presentation started with a showcase of their teams and various units that comprised their division and their heads of units and sections.

Speaking on his tenure, outgoing SG, Prof. Osman Sankoh said that during the last 5 years, his administration with support of the incoming SG, Andrew Bob Johnny, reinvigorated the National Statistical office of Sierra Leone.  Prof Sankoh pointed out that his leadership has increased the institution's credibility by building strong foundations for digital data collection,analysis, and reporting and has developed a clear trajectory for its future. He continued that his leadership has achieved this by focusing on 6 major areas:

1.  Strengthening stakeholder engagement across Sierra Leone;

2.  Building strong relationships with International partners chief of which was being elected as the only NSO on the UN Statistical Commission for 3 years;

3.  Establishing Sierra Leone as the leader in statistical capability in Africa by delivering transparent data to support progress towards the SDGs;

4.  Significantly developing the capacity and infrastructure of Stats SL to modernise and digitize the statistical system and enhance the ability of its staff to utilise digital data;

5.  Spearhearding a variety of initiatives ranging from new, small-scale focused studies such as CHESS and ;

6.  Breaking new grounds for Stats SL as a research platform working with credible and leading research institutions in Africa producing innovative and forward-thinking statistics to put the organisation at the forefront of national research institutions.  

He ended by thanking God, Stats SL Council, Management and staff for their support during his tenure.

Aesthetically speaking to the general staff of Stats SL, the new Statistician General and CEO of Stats SL, Andrew Bob Johnny sincerely expressed his appreciation to the President of Sierra Leone, HE Rtd. Brigadier Julius Maada Bio for the opportunity accorded him to serve as SG/CEO. He thanked Stats SL Council for their unflinching support throughout his tenure as Deputy Statistician General.  He also expressed indebtedness to his predecessor Prof. Osman Sankoh, for his mentorship and guidance and for paving his way to becoming the Statistician General/CEO of an institution he has served for a very long time. To his colleagues, he smiled and said “patience is a virtue, I have been through the good, the bad and the ugly but with hard work and dedication am now the Statistician General and CEO of Stats SL. I am ready to work with you irrespective of your color, gender, tribe or region and I promise that I will be a leader that will listen to your cries and work towards them. Now is the time for us to come together and work as one for the betterment of Stats SL and the country as a whole”.  He concluded by saying that though his leadership will be a continuation of the good deeds from the previous, he will however strive to better it and raise standards even higher.He encouraged everyone to do his or her best as Stats SL starts a new dawn.

Making a brief statement, Chairman of Stats SL Council, Moses Williams, said he is happy to witness a smooth transition that has never happened in the history of Stats SL. He also encouraged staff to work hard and make the institution proud. He re-echoed the clarion call to support the new leadership of Andrew Bob Johnny as the Statistician General and CEO of Stats SL so that the institution will keep on making tremendous gains. He concluded by thanking other members of council for successfully guiding Stats SL management throughout the years which has impacted on the development of the institution.

The program was climaxed with an awards ceremony for long serving staff from 15 years and above and this was followed by the official handing over from the outgone Statistician General Mallam O, to the newly appointed Statistician General and CEO of Stats SL Andrew Bob Johnny.

© Stats SL Comms & PR Div

The implementation of global and regional agendas and frameworks such as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the AU Revised Migration Policy Framework require timely and up-to-date high quality data to monitor progress, as well as inform policy formulation and development implementations at the national level, for which member states must make commitment to provide data. 

At the fourth regional coordination meeting in Accra (Ghana), from 9th to 12th November 2021, the organizers (Statistics Sweden, ECOWAS and AU-STATAFRIC) of the Regional Workshop on Migration Statistics in the ECOWAS Region advised national focal points to form national coordination committee on migration data in order to improve data availability and sources.

Stats SL being the national agency (NSO) that is mandated with the responsibility of coordinating statistical activities in the country and designating statistics as official for Sierra Leone, has embarked on strengthening the national statistical system on migration, by collaborating with organizations in the country that generate, produce and manage migration data through the establishment of a National Coordination Committee on Migration Data with funding from Statistics Sweden and IOM Sierra Leone and support from ECOWAS.

This Coordination Committee was established on the 3rd of June, 2022 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Freetown to create a hub for discussion on the processes and challenges in the production and management of migration data, as well as facilitate the timely compilation and access to high quality migration statistics that inform policies for the achievement of social justice.

THE COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM (CHESS) PROJECT: AN OVERVIEW

Background

Statistics Sierra Leone (Stats SL) is implementing a $30m grant to the Government of Sierra Leone from the World Bank entitled Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West Africa Project (HISWA) for the period 2020-2025. This is part of a regional project with seven countries (Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Togo) which is expected to be scaled-up to other African countries. The goal of HISWA is to strengthen the statistical system of participating countries and regional bodies in Africa to produce, disseminate and enhance the use of core economic and social statistics.

The HISWA project will support three core tasks: the implementation Strategy for harmonizing statistics in West Africa initiative by African Union (AU); the production of harmonized methodologies by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission; and improve data access at the regional level. 

These core tasks will include: support Household-based Surveys; support the Core Set of Economic Statistics; support the modernization of the consumer price index (CPI); support the improvement of administrative data sources; improve data accessibility and dissemination; support institutional reforms and enhance human capital all at the national level. 

The project also supports the Government’s vision of efficient internal data management and improved public access to data by providing a comfortable work environment and secure storage of IT equipment and statistical records. 

The CHESS Project

A key sub-component of the HISWA project for Sierra Leone (HISWA-SL) involves the improvement of administrative and health statistics. An important strategy for doing this is the new Comprehensive Health and Epidemiological Surveillance System (CHESS) which is being implemented in Sierra Leone for the first time. 

CHESS is a new generation of population surveillance operations that is capable of timely delivery of high-quality data for disease-specific and pathogen-specific morbidity, together with data for overall and cause-specific mortality. The widely acclaimed Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) forms the backbone of CHESS. 

An HDSS starts with a census of a geographic area to determine the denominator population which then gets evaluated over a long period of time. In and out migration as well as births and deaths of that population determine the dynamic cohort. Verbal autopsies are taken on deaths to report on cause-specific mortality. 

The main CHESS innovation is the effective integration across population and health facility data systems, linking demographic, epidemiological, mortality, morbidity, clinical, laboratory, household, environmental, health systems, and other contextual data, with a unique electronic individual identification system throughout. It is expected that this innovation will enable Sierra Leone to take part in cutting edge longitudinal population-based research which many other countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific have been implementing as part of the INDEPTH Network of HDSS member centres. 

Importantly, in the implementation of CHESS, Stats SL will collaborate with National Civil Registration Authority (NCRA), Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS), the Universities, Civil Society Organisations, NGOs and other research institutions. 

In Sierra Leone, the selection of districts to implement the CHESS project sites was done by a large group of stakeholders who used specific criteria to determine the locations. 

  1. CHESS Technical Committee
  2. International Scientific Advisory Committee
  3. CHESS Staff
  4. CHESS Lead

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