Sierra Leone has advanced discussions with Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) towards the launch of the country’s Heads of State Initiative on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), following a bilateral engagement between the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Dr. Sao-Kpato Hannah Isatta Macarthy, and SWA’s Acting Chief Executive Officer, Sitali Muyatwa, on the sidelines of World Water Week 2026 in Stockholm, Sweden.
SWA is a UNICEF-hosted global partnership dedicated to universal access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene. The discussions focused on Sierra Leone’s National Water Compact and preparations for the country to formally join SWA’s Heads of State Initiatives, which seek to elevate WASH to the highest level of political leadership, strengthen political commitment, mobilise resources, align sector stakeholders and accelerate progress towards universal access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene services.
He described the Heads of State Initiatives as a growing global movement through which political leaders are placing WASH higher on national agendas and using political leadership to drive financing, governance and service delivery.
The SWA CEO commended Sierra Leone’s leadership in advancing preparations for the initiative and expressed the Secretariat’s strong appreciation of the country’s Water Compact, indicating that the Compact would be uploaded to the SWA website to increase its visibility among development and financing partners.
The engagement is particularly significant as Sierra Leone’s National Water Compact 2026–2030 forms part of the country’s broader effort to achieve a water-secure Sierra Leone and is among the national Water Compacts publicly listed by the World Bank under its Water Forward initiative.
In response, the Minister reaffirmed the commitment of President Julius Maada Bio to transforming the WASH sector, noting that the transfer of the sanitation mandate from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation in July 2023 placed overall governance of the sector under one ministry and created greater opportunity for coordinated action.
She said the Ministry, working with WASH sector partners, had developed a Heads of State Advocacy Strategy built around five strategic priority areas, including stronger institutions and governance, improved coordination and accountability, increased domestic financing and better budget execution.
Dr Macarthy further noted that “Sierra Leone’s Water Compact was signed by President Bio as an expression of political commitment to achieving universal WASH coverage by 2030, with the Compact containing costed interventions covering capacity building, water supply, liquid and solid waste management and water resources management”.
The Minister also highlighted ongoing efforts to work with academic institutions to develop curricula for training WASH technicians, thereby addressing critical middle-level human resource gaps, while stressing the importance of private-sector participation to complement public utilities, improve commercial efficiency and expand service delivery.
She also proposed a high-level subregional WASH conference within the Mano River Union framework as a strategic platform for bringing together governments, development partners, utilities, civil society and other sector actors ahead of the 2026 United Nations Water Conference. She called on SWA to partner with and support the proposed conference, a request that received a positive response from the SWA CEO, who expressed keen interest in supporting the initiative and confirmed that the organisation would provide funding assistance towards the launch of Sierra Leone’s Heads of State Initiative.
The Minister assured the SWA Secretariat of Sierra Leone’s commitment to providing the necessary leadership for the launch and proposed mid-October 2026 as a tentative timeframe. The planned initiative would build on the country’s growing engagement in the global WASH agenda and comes at a time when SWA is placing increased emphasis on political action, financing and country-led compacts as tools for translating commitments into measurable progress.
