This is the third in a series of interviews with participants at the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health’s Learning Collaborative Forum in Addis Ababa on motivation – what motivates them and how do they motivate others. Aminata Kanu is the MLI country lead in Sierra Leone.

Q: What gets you motivated?

A: I grew up partly in Sierra Leone and partly in the UK and worked in a number of different countries. In 2008 – at the time I hadn’t been to Sierra Leone for about 18 years – my father died and I went back home for the funeral. When I arrived, I had some help from the military in the form of transportation to take us around. The chief of defense, a close friend of ours, let us use his vehicle.

At the end of MLI’s Learning Collaborative Forum, two of the organizers reflected on highlights from the four days of discussions. Marty Makinen, managing director of Results for Development Institute (R4D), and Amanda Folsom, senior program officer for R4D, spoke with John Donnelly about their impressions of the forum. This is the first of two interviews that look at the forum’s outcomes.

Q: Were your expectations met? 

Marty Makinen: When this started, I wrote that my expectation would be to `make connections,’ meaning I personally would make connections and I would help make connections for others. I’m very happy both were achieved. 

Amanda Folsom: I shared expectations of making connections, too. I was also curious to see how the country-led sessions in the mix of topics would go over. I was a little nervous we were covering too many topics. But I think overall it gave everyone a taste of what the countries were involved in and a showed a lot of breadth in their work. 

Q: How was this meeting different from past MLI gatherings?