Manja Kargbo

Manja Kargbo leads the Mayor’s Delivery Unit, a team established specifically to drive innovation at Freetown City Council through the Transform Freetown Plan. As Team Lead, she provides strategic oversight to the team in the development, implementation, and delivery of over 30 projects. She led the team that developed #FreetownTheTreeTown which seeks to tackle the devastating rates of deforestation in the city by utilizing the community to plant, grow and digitally track trees. The project went on to win the Bloomberg Mayors Challenge in 2022 and was an Earthshot Prize finalist in 2023. She is currently an Earthshot Prize Fellow.

Manja works closely with the Mayor of Freetown and other city leaders to drive strategy and set the climate agenda through implementing the first Freetown Climate Action Strategy for the bustling city of 1.2million residents, with a focus on building equitable and sustainable pathways to climate adaptation with mitigation co-benefits for communities across the city.

Manja has a knack for building teams and programs from the ground up, even when the odds are against her. She has previously played a part in the establishment of a thriving private sector bank in Sierra Leone, led a high impact non-profit focused on business development services, and led a campaign to get a then-political underdog into office.