National Water Resources Management Agency (NWRMA) Five-year Strategic Development Plan (2019 -2023).

This Strategic Development Plan moves from the consideration that, on the one hand, the water resources demand in the country has increased rapidly in the recent times, due to the growing pressures from the hydroelectric power generation, from the water supply to urban, small and large towns, from mining, industrialisation and irrigation activities; on the other hand, the destruction of critical watersheds and water catchment areas and changing climatic conditions have led to water scarcity with the drying up of many streams and rivers and the reduction of groundwater aquifers. Therefore, this Strategic Development Plan, developed in compliance with the National Water Resource Management (NWRMA) Act no. 5 of 2017, aims at achieving a sustainable management of Sierra Leone’s water resources. The Strategic Plan is structured as follows: 1) Introduction, country profile and status of water resources management, monitoring and assessment of water resources, Policy directions. 2) Challenges and opportunities of water resources management. 3) Outline of the vision and mission statement, core values and goals. 4) Description of the strategies for achieving the five-year goals. 5) Implementation strategy and risk management. 6) Cost implication in achieving the goals of the Strategic Plan.
The Strategic Development Plan, reflecting the responsibility of the Agency towards the management of the country’s water resources, defines the following mission: regulating and managing water resources, in order to provide for basic and essential services, while promoting equitable and inclusive economic growth. The related goals include: realisation of a regulatory and institutional framework for managing and protecting water resources; effective assessment and monitoring system; protection of watershed and catchment against deforestation and other environmental problems, through the conservation of the ecosystem; ensuring actions for climate change mitigation and adaptation, and creation of a water-related disaster management; enforcement of international cooperation for the use of trans-boundary water resources. In order to achieve the defined goals, the Development Plan provides for the following outputs and measures: effective and adequate financing mechanism; creation of a capacity building strategy; mapping of watershed and catchments and analysing their ecosystem; involving local communities leaders in catchment and watershed management and protection.