Njala Vision 2025 – Kick off Meeting

September 17-20, 2018 in Freetown and Njala, Sierra Leone

After a decade long civil war (1991-2002) in Sierra Leone and the Ebola crisis in 2014-2015, the Njala University in Sierra Leone still finds itself in a very difficult situation and a huge potential remains underutilized.

The institutional framework of this major human resource development center must not only be rehabilitated, but also has to be aligned with the socio-economic challenges of today to become relevant. A lot of efforts have been made, but there is need for a continued and sustained investment to rehabilitate the infrastructure and improve the knowledge development and teaching capacity to enable a good learning environment.

For this reason, the Food Security Center, together with the Njala University (NU) and other stakeholders like the Songhai Centre, the Integrated Sasakawa Africa Fund for Extension Education (SAFE) and the University of Illinois, got together at the premises of the Njala University on the third week of September 2018 to develop a project to reconvert the NU into the great educational center which it once was.

On Monday, September 17th we met with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representatives in Sierra Leone, with the Minister of Agriculture and with the European Commission in Freetown. Brief presentations of the involved stakeholders and institutions were made and the possibilities of having their support for the Njala Vision 2025 Project were discussed.

From the 18th to the 20th of September the meetings took place at the guest house of Njala University. The Njala Vision 2025 – Kick off Meeting had the following objectives:

1. Bring key stakeholders to the table
2. Develop a common understanding and knowledge on current facilities, strengths and weaknesses of Njala University
3. Learn about on-going initiatives and projects
4. Identify the most pressing needs and develop a realistic approach to upgrade Njala University in collaboration with all the involved stakeholders

After the weeklong discussions it was agreed to initiate a sustainable farm model at the Njala University which will serve as a practice and educational place for professors and students and where all departments of the university can merge and work together.