According to a letter dated 7th December, 2021 sent to the Minister of Finance, the World Bank states that it can no longer disburse any further funds under IDA Grant No. D584-SL to support the mid-term population census fund.
The letter went further to state that “Therefore, while our technical team remains available to provide continued preparatory support, regretfully we will be unable to provide further technical assistance nor disburse any further funds under IDA Grant No. D584-SL to support the mid-term population census following the announced inception of data collection on December 10, 2021.
The letter noted that the World Bank had earmarked financial support to help prepare and implement a mid-term population census in Sierra Leone—under the Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West Africa (HISWA) Project (P169265) IDA Grant No. D584-SL—because these data are critical to inform economic development policy, planning and programs, and that the 2015 population census exercise resulted in data of insufficient quality to do so.
It added that since September 2020 the World Bank’s task team has been providing technical support to help prepare Statistics SL to implement a mid-term population census that would result in good quality data. “Much progress was made by Statistics SL in recent months and preparatory efforts further intensified recently,” the bank’s letter stated.
The World Bank’s letter maintained that: “To that end, a roadmap laying out the final remaining steps, actions and technical verifications required was prepared and multilaterally agreed (between Statistics SL, UNFPA and the World Bank task team) during the first week of November 2021.”
Unfortunately, according to the letter, “To date, while work on most actions points is underway with some completed, several critical action points require further technical work to be satisfactorily addressed including evaluation of the pilot census, the field operation plan for the enumeration, and ensuring enumerators are adequately trained.”
The World Bank in its letter stressed that all these outstanding actions are necessary and must be addressed prior to commencing data collection to minimize the risk of inadequate and poor data quality, adding that there is insufficient time between now and December 10, 2021 to satisfactorily address all pending actions.
It maintained that, while the World Bank technical team remains available to provide continued preparatory support, “regretfully, we will be unable to provide further technical assistance nor disburse any further funds under IDA Grant No. D584-SL to support the mid-term population census following the announced inception of data collection on December 10, 2021.”
It added that the undisbursed balance of funds earmarked to support the mid-term population census could be reallocated to other activities supported under the HISWA project following consultations with the task team.
See World Bank letter
