Sierra Leone

WFP is phasing out moderate acute malnutrition treatment for children under 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. This continues to be provided through supplementary feeding in Government health facilities in the four districts with the highest rates of Global Acute Malnutrition. WFP complements the efforts of the Government, UNICEF and other partners to address stunting, focusing on the first 1,000 days by providing a nutrient-dense complementary food, to children under 2 in two districts.

Although WFP has phased out direct nutrition support to people living with HIV and Tuberculosis (TB), it has been advocating with the National Social Protection agency for inclusion of eligible beneficiaries in their social protection schemes. As part of capacity strengthening, WFP provides Ministry of Health and Sanitation staff – both at national and health facility level – with a training package on nutrition and immuno-compromised diseases such as HIV/AIDS and TB.

Through linking farmers to WFP local procurement opportunities and private-sector buyers, WFP and its partners support smallholder farmers in selling their surplus crops at competitive prices, thus bolstering their income, reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience. WFP also supports farmers to build capacities in post-harvest management and value addition, including milling, parboiling, packaging and appropriate storage to minimize post-harvest losses and achieve quality, high-value outputs.

WFP strengthens the livelihoods of food insecure communities that are vulnerable to shocks by implementing food assistance for assets (FFA) programmes that create productive assets, promote the production of nutritionally diverse foods, diversify livelihood strategies and rehabilitate degraded ecologies. WFP prioritizes the targeting of assets that are communally managed to ensure that food and nutritional benefits accrued benefit the community as a whole. For these activities, WFP works in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF).

Building on the infrastructure and logistics capacity established during the Ebola outbreak, WFP continues to provide national institutions with training and technical assistance in the areas of disaster planning, supply chain systems, geo-spatial mapping, nutrition-sensitive programming and food security monitoring and analysis. WFP also maintains a logistics base to store essential humanitarian and preparedness assets and support WFP–led national disaster response training programmes. For these activities, WFP partners with the Office of National Security, MAF and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.

WFP is supporting the integrated school feeding programme providing over 300,000 primary school children with fortified food in two of the most food insecure districts of the country – Pujehun and Kambia – as well as seven additional districts (Bonthe, Bombali, Kailahun, Karene, Kenema and Port Loko) being funded by the Government of Sierra Leone. The programme will attempt to link local farmers to school feeding supply chains to provide a market opportunity to increase household income and support rural development.

WFP is supporting the most affected populations, including people in treatment centres, quarantined homes and self-isolation, and scaling up activities to combat malnutrition in collaboration with UNICEF.
To support the the humanitarian response, WFP has been providing services such as management of in-country staging areas, warehouses and transport capacities for medicine, water and sanitation, food and non-food supplies; engineering support; and coordination of WFP COVID-19 air services pending resumption of commercial flights.