Yvonne Denise Aki-Sawyerr - 70

Mayor Aki-Sawyerr was sworn in as Mayor of Freetown in May 2018 with a vision to #Tranform Freetown and improve the lives of Freetown’s residents. Her 4-year #TransformFreetown plan details 19 concrete targets across 11 sectors and covers issues ranging from tackling environmental degradation to facilitating the creation of jobs. The plan is being delivered with a focus on resilience, human development, features of healthy cities and urban mobility. With the use of innovation as an underlying principle, Mayor Aki-Sawyerr’s delivery approach places a premium on community ownership, a heightened level of transparency and accountability and data-driven decision making. Progress against the #TransformFreetown plan is tracked and communicated to residents and stakeholders through her publication of annual reports highlighting achievements such as: #FreetownTheTreeTown – the planting of 1million trees in and around the city; the construction and operations of the country’s first ever wastewater treatment plant; reform of the city’s property rate system that digitised assessment and increased the city’s revenue potential seven-fold; the introduction of a comprehensive community-centred waste management value chain which has created over 1,200 jobs whilst making the city clean; and the design and feasibility studies for a city cable car system as a means of providing green mass transit.