Achievements

Implementation of Farmer Input projects : With grants from ActionAid International Sierra Leone, Seed support from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security Special Programme for Food Security/FAO. SLAAH was able to support its destitute women farmers with seeds, tools and small grants. The alliance identified the villages and worked with community organizations to best distribute the inputs and ensure proper training of the same.

Community mobilization and Data collection: Through community meetings and focus group discussions with farmers, petty traders, men, women and youth separate groups, the Alliance collected information about causes of hunger and suggested solutions to the problems. The major objective was to build partnerships and networks to fight hunger at community level. These meetings have been extensive involving Councilors and Chiefs, and have taken place in the south of the country in Bo, Moyamba, and Pujehu. In the North, Tonkolili, Bombali, Koinadugu and Kambia. In the East, Kenema and Kono and in the Western Area in Freetown .

Communications for Development on Hunger and Right to Food: The alliance has been creating awareness on hunger and the Right to Food through mini-trainings at district and community level. Several radio discussions have also taken place at these levels and usually spaces are provided for listeners to phone-in and ask questions or make contribution. These radio and phone-in programmes have been very effective in delivering the message and they provide enormous opportunity for raising awareness as there are community radios in almost all the regions in the country. Some of the concepts or topics that have been discussed include: Government draft Agricultural and Seed policy, and the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food. Some of the participants that have taken part in discussions have been Farmers, Students, Government officials, Civil society, Petty traders, NGO workers and Members of the print and electronic media.

Partnership with International Non-Governmental Organizations, Other UN bodies and Government agencies and departments: SLAAH work regularly with INGOs, UN bodies and Government agencies and departments in order to broaden the alliance and resource base. Some of the active INGOs have been ActionAid International and CARITAS and UN bodies include FAO, WFP and UNDP. The active government agencies and departments include the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Development and Economic Planning.

Engagement with other Alliance members Activities and Campaign: The National alliance has also been very supportive to other organizations in the alliance by supporting their advocacy and campaign activities. The alliance participated in the launching and subsequent implementation of ActionAid’s HungerFREE campaign. The alliance is also very active in the activities of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) coalition especially for the campaigns for fair trade and the stand-up against poverty and for the millennium development goals, which was jointly sponsored by GCAP and UNDP. SLAAH is also a member of the planning committee for the World Food Day with the government and UN agencies, the Special Programme for Food Security at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security/FAO. Sierra Leone have been a main player in the community consultations and trainings for these initiatives.