Action Against Hunger in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa, faces chronic food insecurity due to ongoing climate shocks and disease outbreaks, such as an Ebola outbreak in 2014 and the COVID-19 pandemic. While the country is currently peaceful, Sierra Leone is recovering from an 11-year civil war, which ultimately dismantled infrastructure within the country and destroyed essential social services.
According to the World Food Programme (WFP), 57% of people in Sierra Leone are food insecure, 26.2% of children face impaired growth and development due to chronic malnutrition, and 43% of people live below the poverty line. A high poverty rate, coupled with limited access to education and health care, exacerbates the vulnerability of Sierra Leone’s population to hunger and malnutrition.
Action Against Hunger
Action Against Hunger, a global humanitarian organization, is committed to eradicating hunger worldwide. The organization states, “A world without hunger will never be achieved alone. We collaborate with communities, foundations, companies, governments, and humanitarian partners to achieve zero hunger.”
Founded in 1979, the organization operates in more than 50 countries. It reaches approximately 28 million people a year by implementing a comprehensive approach focusing on advocacy, food security, nutrition, water sanitation, emergency responses and researching innovative solutions. Funded by various governments, institutional donors and private contributors, their approach focuses on providing sustainable solutions and achieving food security for all.
Action Against Hunger began its mission in Sierra Leone in 1991, at the beginning of the country’s civil war and during the subsequent humanitarian crisis. According to BlackPast, “The Sierra Leone Civil War was one of the bloodiest in Africa resulting in more than fifty thousand people dead and half a million displaced in a nation of four million people.”
The initial goals of Action Against Hunger were to provide emergency relief, improve water and sanitation, and combat malnutrition. The organization’s early engagement laid the foundation for ongoing, comprehensive programs addressing the complex factors contributing to hunger.
Action Against Hunger in Sierra Leone
In recent years, Action Against Hunger in Sierra Leone has implemented various programs targeting malnutrition, food security, water and sanitation in Sierra Leone. The primary focus of Action Against Hunger in Sierra Leone is improving health systems and services to prevent and treat malnutrition of children. Action Against Hunger provides “pregnant women, mothers, caregivers, and young people with knowledge about healthy nutrition through training, awareness, and cooking sessions.”
Implementing bottom-up approaches, such as empowering pregnant women, mothers, caregivers and young people through providing knowledge on healthy nutrition, signifies a proactive strategy that fosters community involvement and ensures sustained positive impact.
Action Against Hunger has also implemented the PROSSAN project in Sierra Leone, which seeks to address the profound health challenges of vulnerable populations within the country, focusing on women, children under 5 and young people. PROSSAN is has support from the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and works to provide quality care for women and young people adjusted for specific needs to reduce early pregnancies and the number of maternal and infant deaths.
The program is founded on three key pillars:
- Promoting good practices within the health system.
- Empowering communities and Civil Society Organizations to enhance behaviors benefitting health.
- Advocating for policy changes to improve the health of the targeted populations.
The Future of Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone faces ongoing challenges, including changing weather patterns and health crises. Looking ahead, Action Against Hunger in Sierra Leone aims to expand its impact by scaling up successful interventions and collaborating with local partners. The United Nations has set a goal of ending hunger and ensuring access to food for all people in Sierra Leone by 2030. This broader goal includes ending malnutrition, doubling agricultural productivity, ensuring sustainable food production systems, diversifying farming, increasing investments in rural infrastructure and more. Organizations like Action Against Hunger contribute to achieving these broader goals by committing to evolving strategies in response to extreme hunger in Sierra Leone.
– Marisa Kole
Photo: Flickr