MayorFreetown City Council
Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr OBE was Mayor of Freetown from May 2018 to February 2023 and was recently reelected to serve for a second term. A finance professional with over 25 years of private sector experience in strategic planning, risk management consulting and project management, Mayor Aki-Sawyerr adopted an inclusive, data-driven approach to addressing challenges in the city. She championed the 4-year Transform Freetown plan which detailed 19 concrete targets across 11 sectors and covered issues ranging from tackling environmental degradation to facilitating the creation of jobs for youth. Annually published Transform Freetown reports that document progress made against targets can be found at https://fcc.gov.sl. AkiSawyerr’s notable achievements include the construction and operation of Freetown’s first ever wastewater treatment plant, the digitalization and expansion of the city’s property rate system, the creation of over 3,500 jobs for youth and women, the planting and tracking of 970,000 trees as part of the #FreetownTheTreeTown 1m trees target and securing the ongoing feasibility study for the introduction of a cable car system for the city.
Aki-Sawyerr was featured by Time Magazine in the inaugural Time100 Climate List 2023, the Time100 Next
2021 List and by the BBC in the BBC 100 Women 2020 List. A Chartered Accountant with an MSc in Politics
of the World Economy from the London School of Economics and a BSc Hons in Economics from Fourah Bay
College, Aki-Sawyerr is also the Co-Chair of C40 Cities.