How a World Bank Program is Turning Creativity into Jobs for Women in Sierra Leone

Amena is a young fashion designer based in Sierra Leone's bustling Freetown. With their alluring patterns and vibrant colors, it is impossible to look away from Amena's designs. When she first launched her business, Amena's Couture, which makes contemporary Sierra Leonean clothing for men and women, it was not talent or demand for her clothes which she lacked, but rather, a business ecosystem that could help her address operational gaps and allow her to scale up.

Amena's story is emblematic of the experiences faced by many creative young professionals in Sierra Leone and across Africa. According to the newly published Sierra Leone Creative Economy Diagnostic Report, creative industries already contribute an estimated 4.5 percent of GDP and 10 percent of formal employment in the country, with women and youth making up a large share of the workforce. Fashion and textiles alone account for more than 11,000 formal jobs.

Fostering an ecosystem that allows people to make a living from their creative pursuits is not just about providing them with the right skills. It's also about enabling clear rules that protect intellectual property, infrastructure that supports production and distribution, financing that matches how creative businesses work, and digital systems that allow people to get paid. When those pieces are in place, small creative firms can flourish.

Under the World Bank's global CreatiFi program, Sierra Leone piloted a two-track approach pairing policy-level diagnostics with practical enterprise support. Alongside the Creative Economy Diagnostic, the program launched a women-focused accelerator for creative micro and small businesses. Over three months, 24 entrepreneurs took part in intensive training, digital bootcamps, and direct engagement with banks, fintech firms, and telecom providers. This accelerator was implemented by Creative Hub Africa, a leading creative economy incubator, which grew out of the World Bank's Sierra Leone Economic Diversification Project.

Amena was one of the participants of the pilot program. Through hands-on training in digital business management, branding, and financial planning, Amena completed her formal business registration and began using simple tools to track inventory and finances. A turning point came during the CreatiFi Lagos Exchange, where she connected with reliable suppliers and learned how similar businesses manage production at scale.

Six months after completing the program, Amena had doubled her team-from five to eleven employees-and increased revenues by 37 percent. More importantly, she now had a network, systems, and the confidence to scale up.

The results of the program were concrete:

• All participating businesses became formal.
• Digital adoption jumped.
• Sixty percent reported new buyer or supplier connections.
• The cohort created 30 direct jobs during the program period.
• Participants also reported stronger financial practices, better compliance understanding, and new professional collaborations.

What made the pilot especially compelling was its efficiency. With a modest budget, it delivered measurable business outcomes, showing that well-designed technical assistance paired with fostering an ecosystem of entrepreneurs can generate quick wins, while also pointing to where deeper reforms are needed.

A replicable model for scale

Sierra Leone's experience was designed to be replicated. The World Bank team produced an Accelerator Manual and a Creative Economy Diagnostic Toolkit so governments and development partners can adapt the model to other contexts and creative subsectors.

The diagnostic also lays out a phased agenda, from copyright and payments to finance and infrastructure, to help creativity translate into jobs at scale. And the Creative Accelerator itself is ready to scale, reaching a wider set of creative businesses in Sierra Leone while serving as a blueprint for similar programs in other countries.

With an enabling environment and strategic support, creative jobs can be among the fastest, most inclusive pathways from talent to meaningful livelihoods.

Learn more: Report Launch of Sierra Leone's Creative Economy Diagnostic and Roadmap

The CreatiFi initiative is supported by the Finance for Development (F4D) Umbrella Trust Fund and the C-JET Umbrella Trust Fund, funded by the European Commission.

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Story by Louise Twining-Ward, Alari Mahdi, and Alex Pio