First Technical Support Mission to Sierra Leone

05/08/2013

Since Sierra Leone’s civil conflict ended in 2002, the country has moved consistently towards restoring national security and good governance, re-launching the economy, and providing basic services to the most vulnerable groups. A National Recovery Strategy in 2002 was followed by a long term sustainable development plan: “Sierra Leone Vision 2025” and Sierra Leone’s first Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for the period 2005-2007. Moreover, an Agenda for Change: Social and Economic Empowerment 2008-2012, emphasises the need to develop an enabling environment to support the private and productive sectors of the economy. The agricultural sector is among others the main key enabler and driver of economic growth.

For this reason, having statistical data on the Food and Agriculture Sector for processing and analysis is essential for the development of agriculture sector planning and implementation in Sierra Leone. The Government of Sierra Leone has requested the technical assistance of the FAO CountrySTAT team in order to ensure the dissemination of all available food and agriculture data statistics, including agricultural surveys and censuses data to enable users to access this information via the internet.

Under the Project “Strengthening agricultural sector’s capacity for collection, analysis, use and dissemination of agricultural and food security statistics for policy and programme planning” (PEMSD), a ten days Technical Support Mission was planned and conducted in Freetown, capital city of Sierra Leone.