Sierra Leone Economic Diversification Project

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The objective of Economic Diversification Project for Sierra Leone is to increase investment, Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) growth, and entrepreneurship in non-mining productive sectors in the Recipient’s territory. The project will consist of four components: (i) Improving Business Environment and Capacity Building component will support policy, administrative and regulatory reforms that will facilitate business entry and operation in Sierra Leone. The component will focus on streamlining, automating (whenever possible) and making more transparent the interactions between government institutions and businesses, as related to registration of firms, and obtaining of licenses, permits, approvals and other key documents needed for a business to operate in Sierra Leone. The component will also support the strengthening of the access to finance infrastructure by supporting key parts of that infrastructure such as the Collateral Registry. ; (ii) SMEs and Entrepreneurship component will facilitate SME growth and stimulate entrepreneurship in high-growth productive sectors by addressing critical firm-level and sector-level constraints. Current challenges to SME growth in Sierra Leone include: (i) low access to information; (ii) poor infrastructure; (iii) limited access to finance; (iv) weak capacity to scale businesses and (v) vulnerability to climate change. These are constraints that disproportionately impact women entrepreneurs. Specific activities in this component to address these challenges include public goods investments, SME and start-up acceleration, and early-stage financing. ; (iii) Project Management and Evaluation component will provide the necessary technical, advisory, and financial support for the adequate implementation, management, and coordination of project activities. This component will also include activities to ensure that monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems for project and sector-wide analysis are upgraded and sustained; and (iv) a Contingent Emergency Response Component (CERC) will establish a disaster recovery contingency fund that may be triggered in the event of an eligible natural or human induced crisis or emergency that has had or may have major adverse socioeconomic impacts during the life of the project.