Sierra Leone Telegraph: 5 November 2026: The 2026 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) opened in Antigua and Barbuda Tuesday, 3rd of November 2026, with a drive for bold partnerships between governments and businesses to unlock prosperity for the Commonwealth’s 2.7 billion people. His Majesty King Charles III, Head of the Commonwealth, joined leaders from across the Commonwealth at the official Opening Ceremony in St. John’s, where they were welcomed with a vibrant performance and dance, celebrating Antiguan and Barbudan culture and history. The ceremony marked the start of leaders’ deliberations under the theme ‘Accelerating Partnerships and Investment for a Prosperous Commonwealth’. This is the first CHOGM under the leadership of Commonwealth Secretary-General Hon Shirley Botchwey. It will also be the first time Heads of Government engage directly at CHOGM with business leaders, investors, heads of international financial institutions and philanthropists. Their focus will be on mobilising partnerships and investment...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 5 November 2026: The third edition of the OceanLove Innovation Awards Ceremony took place on 11 October 2026 at AltaSea, Port of Los Angeles, California. It was an afternoon by the ocean, open to all ages, where the winners across the three award categories — The Blue Circle, Living Sea, and WaveMakers — were announced and celebrated. In addition to the projects recognised by a panel of globally acclaimed judges, the OceanLove Innovation Awards 2026 also featured a public vote, giving audiences the opportunity to support their favourite projects. The project “Coastal Watch Schools: Youth Drones for Sierra Leone’s Vanishing Shores,” led by applicant Abu Bakarr Bangura from Sierra Leone, was selected by public vote as one of the winners of the WaveMakers Award, one of three award categories presented at the OceanLove Innovation Awards 2026. The public vote was open to both attendees at the ceremony...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 03 November 2026: Speak Up Africa and the Ouagadougou Partnership Coordination Unit (OPCU) have opened applications for the third edition of the Africa Young Innovators for Health Award. This edition invites young Africans to propose solutions that use artificial intelligence effectively and responsibly to improve access to family planning. Applications are open until 6 November 2026 at 23:59 GMT. Across West and Central Africa young people face significant barriers to accessing quality family planning information and services, including misinformation, limited access to confidential and youth-friendly care, provider bias and restrictions linked to age or marital status. In the region, 80% of unintended pregnancies among adolescents aged 15–19 occur among those who are not using modern contraception (condoms, oral contraceptive pills, injectables, implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs). Against this backdrop, the Ouagadougou Partnership aims to help 13 million people access and use modern contraceptive methods by 2030. Achieving...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 03 November 2026: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched a three-day training to support 20 Sierra Leonean innovators selected under the Global Plastics Innovation Programme (GPIP) to transform their ideas for addressing plastic pollution into scalable businesses that create jobs, strengthen communities and drive sustainable development. The training is part of a series of activities under GPIP, funded by the United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund (UNPDF). It combines expert-led sessions, practical exercises, peer learning and networking opportunities. Following the training, participants will receive ongoing technical advisory support to help them overcome growth challenges, strengthen their business models and prepare for expansion. Across Sierra Leone, innovators are developing solutions to some of the country’s most pressing plastic pollution challenges, including waste collection and recovery, recycling, reuse systems, alternative materials and circular business models. However, many promising ventures face difficulties in accessing finance, building strategic partnerships,...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 03 November 2026: Ministers from six countries have called for urgent action to transform food systems to help close the global biodiversity implementation gap, as governments at COP17 confront slow progress towards their 2030 nature targets. With more than half of the 23 global biodiversity targets dependent on transforming food systems, representatives from Sierra Leone, Brazil, Norway, Italy, Cambodia and Viet Nam are calling for greater investment and stronger coordination across agriculture, environment, climate and finance ministries to accelerate delivery. They urge governments, financial institutions, development partners and the private sector to step up investment in agroecological approaches, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, agroforestry and landscape restoration. There’s not only the need for increased finance, but the need for quality, predictability and accessibility to ensure smallholders, women, youth and local communities benefit from investment, they add. In the joint statement ministers who are members of the Alliance of...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 03 November 2026: The ECOWAS Commission, through its Directorate of Free Movement of Persons, Migration and Tourism, held a meeting in Conakry, Guinea, on 22 October 2026 to launch the National Platform for the ECOWAS Regional Cross-Border Cooperation Support Programme (ECBCSP). The Programme is a multisectoral initiative that works with communities in border regions to strengthen social cohesion, regional integration and sustainable development. It seeks to deepen cooperation among populations, neighbouring states and local markets, while supporting joint planning and development across the region. In her welcome address, the Director of Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration and Guineans Established Abroad, Madam Mariama Bailo-Barry, welcomed participants and underscored the importance of promoting cross-border cooperation for countries sharing borders within the ECOWAS. She noted Guinea’s interest in accessing a platform that would enable it to benefit from existing opportunities and strengthen cooperation and expressed hope...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 03 November 2026: The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its partners, the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), last week organised the second regional training session of the Creating Opportunities for Youth and Women in Africa (COYWA) programme from 26 to 30 October 2026, dedicated to strengthening the digital and financial skills of young and women entrepreneurs. This training aims to equip participants with practical knowledge and tailored tools to develop more successful, resilient and competitive businesses. The face-to-face session follows on from the online training phase launched on 23 September 2026, enabling participants to begin their learning journey remotely before continuing the activities in Accra. The training focuses on mastering digital tools, including online security, improving business productivity and using digital platforms in entrepreneurial activities. The session aims to familiarise participants with the responsible use...

Joseph Fitzgerald Kamara, Esq: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 03 November 2026: The new Spectrum Monitoring System is being marketed as a technical fix. Cleaner airwaves, better call quality, and less interference. Agreed, these are laudable objectives. But a mobile spectrum monitor is also a direction finder. It can locate transmitters, and, by extension, broadcasters, sources, and critics. That is where the real problem lies, not in the equipment itself, but in the legal environment surrounding it.  As a country, we still have no comprehensive data protection law in force and no independent privacy regulator. The Cyber Security and Crime Act 2021 already permits real time traffic data collection and interception. Experience shows that the law has been used against journalists. Furthermore, the National Security and Central Intelligence Act 2025 concentrates surveillance power under presidential authority, with weak judicial safeguards and no independent intelligence oversight. When these powers converge, that is, locate...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 3 November 2026: Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), the continent’s leading infrastructure solutions provider, and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) today launched the Africa Sovereign Climate Facility (ASCF) at a signing ceremony in Korea, marking a significant step towards scaling up climate finance and accelerating low-carbon, climate-resilient development across Africa. With total financing of US$690 million, the ASCF is designed to help African countries address the growing impacts of climate change while advancing their economic development priorities. By combining technical assistance, capacity building and large-scale blended finance, the programme will support governments in integrating climate considerations into national development planning and accelerating the implementation of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The programme’s first phase will focus on Angola, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, countries facing significant climate vulnerabilities, infrastructure deficits and rising greenhouse gas emissions. Through an integrated, country-led approach, the ASCF will support interventions across critical sectors,...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 31 October 2026: Visa and Senegal’s Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Affairs have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishing a two-year framework for strategic collaboration to support Senegal’s digital transformation ambitions. This partnership will foster cooperation on digital payments, financial innovation, cybersecurity and regulatory matters, while enabling the exploration of high-impact use cases that could help modernise public services and expand access to digital financial services. This MoU is the first of such partnership signed between Visa and a government institution in Senegal. It is built on structured public-private dialogue and the sharing of expertise to identify collaboration opportunities aligned with national priorities. Visa and Senegal’s Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Affairs will explore, among other areas, payments from individuals to government (P2G, Person-to-Government) and payments from government to individuals (G2P, Government-to-Person). This work will seek to identify how digital solutions could facilitate interactions between citizens...