FAO signs a Memorandum of Understanding with Stats SL

Freetown – The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Statistics Sierra Leone (Stats SL) for effective collaboration in capturing reliable data that will help in tracking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Sierra Leone.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening food security in Sierra Leone. The signing of this MOU will aid FAO in monitoring the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic on agriculture, food security and livelihoods in the country so that we can respond quickly, with our partners, to avoid a worsening crisis,” FAO Representative in Sierra Leone Dr Nyabenyi Tito Tipo said.

FAO is planning to launch an assessment on the impact of COVID-19 on land tenure, agribusinesses and youth. Statistics Sierra Leone is key to implementing the assessment and monitoring progress in the country.

“Stats SL has worked with FAO previously on several national projects and this new MoU will help to strengthen our already existing partnership,” said Statistician-General and CEO of Statistics Sierra Leone, Professor Osman Sankoh (Mallam O.). He also said FAO would be an important partner in an upcoming agricultural census.

According to Prof. Osman, the MoU will allow for sound collaboration in capturing data in the areas of food security and agricultural livelihoods, and it will positively impact the work of Stats SL. The partnership will enable both institutions to have joint planning in data collection and analysis, enabling FAO to provide technical and advisory support for data collection in the country.

At the MoU signing ceremony, FAO Food Security Specialist Robin Yokie said the UN agency will provide institutional capacity building support for the successful capturing of agricultural data. This will be crucial for generating, disseminating and popularizing data to inform decision-making for agricultural and food security development.

Stats SL’s Principal Statistician and Head of Agricultural Statistics, Momodu Kamara, said his institution has already benefited from FAO capacity building programmes in the area of food security assessments, and that Stats SL was part of the National Early Warning System and the National Food Security Monitoring Group. Momodu reiterated that the signing of the MoU would further strengthen collaboration between Stats SL and FAO.

FAO is the custodian UN agency for 21 indicators, for SDGs that relate to food security, gender equality, water and sanitation, and as a contributing agency for four more.  As a custodian agency, FAO is responsible for:

• Collecting data from national sources, validating and harmonizing them, estimating regional and global aggregates and making them available for international reporting;
• Contributing to annual SDG progress reports.
• Establishing partnerships with other international agencies to monitor the increased number of indicators, crucial to achieving interrelated goals.

Uzman Unis Bah

Communication Specialist - FAO Sierra Leone

[email protected] |+23232111882