By Kemo Cham
The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary was host of a Roundtable convened to discuss the potential investment opportunities and challenges in the tourism sector of Sierra Leone.
The meeting held on Thursday, November 7th, was part of engagement by a visiting delegation of international investors exploring business opportunities in infrastructure and sustainable tourism sectors.
The group, described as the largest of its kind in the country’s recent history, comprised representatives from development banks from various countries. They held meetings with government officials and entrepreneurs.
The mission is the result of a collaboration between Invest Salone, the UK funded private sector development programme, and the Africa Resilience Investment Accelerator (ARIA), another UK funded initiative that brings development financing institutions to nations in transition, like Sierra Leone to unlock investment opportunities.
Other partners involved include the British High Commission in Sierra Leone, the National Investment Board and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
A total of eight development finance institutions were represented in this mission, including the British International Investment, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank or FMO, the International Finance Corporation, the US International Development Finance Corporation, and the African Development Bank.
Collectively, these institutions have more than 200 billion US Dollar in assets under management and are looking at how to deploy more in Sierra Leone.
Katya Silva-Leander from Cadmus Group, a consulting firm implementing the Invest Salone project, said that the week-long exploration tour entailed discussions centering around developing critical infrastructure sectors, notably water and energy, essential for addressing the basic needs of Sierra Leone’s population.
“Tourism is an important part of the infrastructure sector, because in other to grow the tourism industry in Sierra Leone, there is a lot of infrastructure investment needed, from hotels to hospitality to airports, roads, access to Sierra Leone and access to the various regions,” she told ManoReporters. She noted that the roundtable was meant to discuss the various challenges involved with already existing businesses and to get an insight into what sort of further investments were needed to grow.
An event was held in partnership with the legal firm Herbert Smith Freehills on how to develop an enabling environment to support greater investment in infrastructure and beyond.
The delegation also participated in a networking event at the British High Commission with business leaders, investors and government officials to mark the first two investments under the ARIA initiative and discussed future opportunities.
Those deals, according to Invest Salone, have helped bring in more than US$45 million to support Sierra Leone’s private sector. They include a US$25 million risk-sharing facility between BII and Ecobank Sierra Leone.
The Tacugama Roundtable provided a platform for the financiers to discuss with representatives of local companies in the tourism sector, with the goal of identifying opportunities and challenges.
Participants took turns to lament the difficulties they face trying to meet high cost of running their business, from expertise to services like water and power.
The team had a tour of the Chimpanzee Sanctuary, whose Founder and Programme Director, Bala Amarasekaran, was happy about the prospects for his entity, which he described as the number one eco-tourism destination of the country.
He said his management is looking to transform the place, noting that resources are what stands between them and realizing their goal.
“You cannot be selling a tourism destination without the infrastructure getting fixed,” he said.
Through the Sierra Leone Economic Diversification project (SLEDIP), Tacugama is getting an innovation center, a botanical garden, an amphitheater, as part of a World Bank funding. Mr Marasekaran said all that will add value to the place and call for more investment.
“We are expanding…That means we expect to cater for tourists and more investments to come,” he said.
