goverSierra Leone News: Sierra Leone Receives Gambian Delegation
By Hasbin Shaw
Sierra Leone’s security sector through the Office of National Security (ONS) has on Monday September 9, 2019, officially welcomed a high-profile delegation from The Gambia in the conference hall of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International cooperation in Freetown.
The delegation is in the country on a week security sector reforms capacity enhancement tour.
The purpose of the delegation in Sierra Leone is to have a peer learning experience from the establishment of the Sierra Leone’s security sector, in order to identify good lessons from Sierra Leone’s post-conflict peace building and state reconstruction efforts for adaptation in restructuring the Gambia’s security sector.
The main areas of focus of the one-week peer learning on Security Sector Reforms Capacity Enhancement tour will includes: security sector reform, policing and law enforcement, immigration, drug law enforcement, strategic planning and policy implementation, democratization and justice sector reforms.
In his welcome address, the National Security Coordinator of ONS, Rtd. John Jah Tucker on behalf of Sierra Leone’s security sector, expressed profound gratitude to the delegation for choosing Sierra Leone as a suitable country to interface and share experience with on matters relating to the transformation of the security sector of the Gambia
He said that following the decade-long civil war which led to the collapse of the security sector, Sierra Leone with the support of the international community, undertook a comprehensive security sector reform (SSR) as a key component for nation building with sustainable peace and development.
He said that the success of the SSR in Sierra Leone has been exhibited in the level of gains earned in democratic governance including the successive conduct of generally peaceful, free, fear and credible national elections without international peacekeeping assistance.
He assured the delegation from the Gambia that in the couple of days during their stay they will have thorough insight into Sierra Leone’s security sector reform. He accorded them the opportunity to witness deliberations in some of the country’s security sector committees and to interact with counterparts in their respective institutions.
In his statement, the National Security Adviser to the President in the Gambia, Momodu Badjie, on behalf of the delegation and their government, thanked the Sierra Leone Government for the efforts and resources put to their disposal and making their visit a promising one.
He said that such an opportunity will indeed avail them to discuss very dense, rich and positive bilateral agenda among the many areas where they seek to cooperate and collaborate on matters of defense and security for the security sector in general and security sector reform in the Gambia in particular.
He said, “The capacity enhancement tour is to further strengthen and build our capacity, knowledge on SSR and to borrow leaf from Sierra Leone which has a practical experience to share,” he said.
Badjie said that “today, our Government of The Gambia is using Security Sector Reform as a fundamental element of comprehensive state building.”
In his keynote address, Sierra Leone’s Chief Minister Professor David Francis welcomed the delegation from The Gambia and acknowledged the progressive leadership of The Gambian President H. E. Adama Barrow, who he said in his wisdom thought it fit to send a delegation to Sierra Leone with the essence of gaining knowledge about security reforms from Sierra Leone.
He said that Sierra Leone’s security reform program has been a test case across the continent and the world as a whole, noting that Sierra Leone has been presented as a successful security reform across the continent.
He told the delegation that Sierra Leone has a profound acquisition of what the delegation seeks to acquire for the purpose of reforming their security sector for development purposes.
