The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, today in Tunis, presented its report on Infrastructure and growth in Sierra Leone. This report is meant to promote support to the country's development program, both at the national and regional level.

The report reviews two important sets of challenges the country faces, namely persistent risks of instability, but also promising growth-oriented poverty reduction sectors. The study on Sierra Leone identifies priority infrastructure investments that can maximize the benefits of integration and internal stability, as well as enable Sierra Leone and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) better profit from enhanced regional integration.

This report is the result of an extensive consultation process involving stakeholders' participation, both within the AfDB and at the country level. It required the holding of a consultative workshop between February and June 2011 in Freetown, to build consensus on priorities and actions.

This study is the first in a series of four AfDB-launched reports on countries in the ecologically vulnerable zone of West Africa, including Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone. These reports are intended as background material in the sub-regional flagship report devoted by the Bank Group to its West Africa regional integration strategy. The study will feed into and build on the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), an initiative led by the African Union Commission, the Secretariat of New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the AfDB, while drawing on the relevant action plans of ECOWAS, the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa and the Mano River Union.

In attendance were Vice President Aloysius Ordu, Bank's Secretary-General, Ms. Cecilia Akintomide, and several representatives from operations complexes.