Over the last two days, Mayor Aki-Sawyerr has been meeting with other African mayors and experts working to build sustainable cities and achieve SDG 11 at the Africa Day Summit and related events, organized by the European Investment Bank and UN Habitat.
The Summit aims to bring city and government leaders, and international institutions to actively work on mobilizing finance for cities in developing countries to achieve sustainable urban development.
Mayor Aki-Sawyerr took part in panel and round table discussions where she shared gaps and bottlenecks in getting sustainable investment for #TransformFreetown, our own urban development agenda, and made recommendations around strengthening institutional and financial frameworks to improve access to funding.
Mayor Aki-Sawyerr also learned from leaders of other West African cities –
Cotonou, Benin; Kisumu, Kenya; Sanarigu Municipality, Ghana; Hargeisa, Somaliland; and Dakar, Senegal amongst others – about how they are overcoming challenges with mobilizing funding for their own urban development plans.
