UNDP, in partnership with Telecommunication Companies Africell and Orange Sierra Leone, have activated a Short-coded Toll-free line-2030 for texting and or calling in with innovative ideas to solve community-based development challenges.

This follows Accelerator Lab in Sierra Leone's quest to unearth innovative solutions to be incoporated into exisiting solutions to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs.  In partnership with Government Institutions (Directorate of Science Technology and Innovation, Ministry of Local Government, National Youth Commission), UN Agencies (World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization) and private sector partner (Innovation SL), a national grassroot solution database has been developed, currently containing more than 130 submitted local solutions and ideas undergoing review and validation. "We want to continue this trend of urgency by maintaining an open channel of communication with the public to fast-track the recording of new ideas as they pop-up within the respective communities."

Sierra Leoneans share a common hope for a better life and a better future for their children. It was in this spirit that leaders of 193 countries, Sierra Leone included, identified the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a roadmap to achieving the Sierra Leone that we imagine.

Although there has been positive movement towards the achievement of these ambitious goals, Sierra Leone continues to be faced with ever-evolving national development challenges; according to UNDP’s Sierra Leone Multidimensional Poverty Index 2019, 64.8% of Sierra Leoneans experience poverty in all its forms, bolstered by an increase in intense climate change effects. Specifically, the highest deprivations experienced nationwide include a lack of access to clean water (58.3% of people deprived), sanitation (83.5%), electricity (79.3%), a bank account (80.8%), and the internet (85.6%). It is clear that the usual avenues of addressing frontier challenges have become stagnated and new nationally led paths of development need to be explored in order to create a positive and drastic turnaround on these figures.