devinitorg/iati-policy-markers huggingface dataset:
Bishops Conference Uganda Visit The visit was intended to leverage on the role and influence of the Bishops Conference in other to strengthen CAFOD’s work with partners as these Bishops oversee the Church Development Agencies. CAFOD’s plan approach in implementing new country strategy is to work with diocesan Caritas to implement project activities and the National Caritas to provide coordination and supervision, whilst is it hoped that the Bishop Conference use information generated to champion national level engagement and advocacy at national levelivities and builds on previous experience.
Emergency Appeal Responding to Ebola Epidemic in Liberia This project aims to  contribute to improving health and well-being of vulnerable populations in Liberia by  Stopping the  transmission of Ebola virus in affected and at risks counties by scaling up effective community-based outbreak control measures.
Ensuring Good Governance for Social Justice The Liberian Local Government Act (LGA) is arguably the first legal instrument to effect full devolution of political, fiscal and administrative powers to local sub-national units. The LGA established a clearer pathway for sustained social-economic development premised on service delivery, enhancing citizens’ participation and local government strengthening. The setting up of County Service Centers (CSCs) that would enable citizens to access a variety of government services across the country enhanced the Act. The government also implemented a rollout of an innovative Citizens’ Feedback Mechanism (CFM) for improved public services, particularly to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of the population. Despite the inflows of domestic revenues from service delivery at the subnational levels, CSCs have been faced with resource constraints that have occasionally impeded their operational efficiency. This has been further exacerbated by the very limited and untimely disbursement of resources from the central government through budgetary transfers, which have hindered service delivery and lowered public confidence in the CSCs. 

Consequently, communities remain deprived of services leading to poor living conditions, because decentralization reforms have largely been legal and regulatory. The commitment in the LGA to establish a citizen driven socioeconomic development premised on service delivery has not been evident. Mechanisms to translate the LGA into needed benefits of decentralization such as the CSCs, have been ineffective and has greatly affected service delivery at the local levels and reduced citizens’ expectations of the benefits that decentralization should bring. This project is designed to promote good governance in the context of social justice initiatives aimed at improving access to public service delivery and addressing the rights of citizens at the local level in Liberia, in Bong, Grand Bassa, Nimba, Grand Gedeh, and Montserrado Counties.
EC Land Rights for Liberia project The overall objective of the project is  to contribute to secure land tenure for poor and marginalised women and youth across 40 communities in Nimba, Lofa, Bong and Margibi counties in Liberia. To achieve this overall objective, two specific objectives have been developed: Specific Objective 1: To improve the system of land tenure and demarcation in favour of marginalised women and youth; Specific Objective 2: To promote land ownership for poor and marginalised women and youth using conflict-sensitive approaches. 
The project estimated results include: 
1. Increased number of land with title deeds (community-led land demarcation) for women and youth; 2. Communities, in particular women and youth, are aware of their rights on land tenure and how to access the necessary services to legalise land possession; 3. Civil Society Organisations are better equipped to support communities on land rights issues; 4. A conflict sensitive approach is mainstreamed throughout formal and informal land entitlement proceedings.
Improved Livelihoods and Food Security for Coastal Communities in Montserrado County, Liberia The fisheries value chain is vital to both food security and employment in many parts of Liberia. However, a significant number of factors need to be addressed. Fishers generally use inefficient and indiscriminate gear that result both in discards and large proportions of juveniles in the catch. Catch handling, both on board and ashore, is very poor, generating unnecessarily high post-harvest losses, contributing further to economic loss, and food insecurity. Fishing vessels are unsafe, and do not use even the most rudimentary navigational gears or safety equipment, increasing inefficiency and contributing to hardship and loss of life. Ashore, fishmongers lack equipment and the basic knowledge of hygiene and fish processing needed to avoid spoilage, maintain the value of their products, and make profitable gains in their commercial fish businesses. The lack of cold chain facilities means that the value chain relies largely on smoked fish. Preserved in highly hazardous smoking ovens that are expensive and inefficient, they produce a variable product that often perishes before sale is possible. This increases post-harvest losses. Moreover, the need to use more wood for a more intensive smoking process also results in a product with a much lower nutritional value and high levels of carcinogens from the higher temperatures needed, as well as environmental degradation in already depleted forests.
However, the impact of CAFOD and CDOM’s previous intervention has been very helpful but few fishers and fishmongers who are minimum to the total population to trigger this huge potential and attract the needed support for fishers. The very few who have benefited from previous intervention have shown better improvement in catch selection and fishing practices, indicating that if the   right equipment can be provided to the fishers who are in dire need of such assistance their livelihood conditions would improve.
JPC/FIND/CAFOD Community Land grabbing Resilience Project 2017 JPC/FIND/CAFOD Community Land Grapping Resilience Project 2017/18 will promote community understanding and civic competence on Land grabbing issues, particularly to support communities to advocate for their rights. This project will work with Citizens in Bong County to increase their level of understanding, build their civic competence on Land grabbing for them to address the present and future situation on Land grabbing in the two districts mentioned above. The project also intends to give the communities a voice by providing them with advocacy skills and support to rectify some already existing land grabbing issues in the districts. The project will also strengthen the capacity of JPC/FIND staff to support communities to deal with Land grabbing as this will ensure sustainability of interventions on Land grabbing carried out in target communities and other communities. The women, youths and men of the two districts will be aware of what Land grabbing is, the effect on communities and they will be equipped on how to adopt different advocacy strategies and techniques to ensure good judgement and decision on how their land should be used. JPC/FIND believes that community dwellers will have positive change in their communities on land allocation and use when women, youth and men are fully aware of what Land grabbing is and they are a part of decision on how their lands are used.
Strengthening the Capacity of Communities to Assure their Rights under the Community Rights Law Government of Liberia has taken steps to empower local communities to establish their rights and responsibilities with respect to forest management that allows communities to maximize their benefits from all potential forest uses. For
example there is a Community Rights Law with respect to forestland, a regulation of the Community Rights Law and a draft policy and regulations on “bush meat, wood energy and other non-wood forest projects”.[1] Notwithstanding, Illegal loggers and miners are entering the forest around the Wologizi Mountain range and extracting forest products
without any reference and just  benefits to seven communities that are custodian of and dependent on the Wologizi nature reserve. The forest dependent communities seem disorganized, helpless and very vulnerable due to the pervasiveness of poverty. Because of poverty, community leaders have often easily sold out for small tokens from exploiters. Because of poverty, community members have been lured to become parties to their own exploitation. Community members spent hours labouring under very risky conditions - some are hired to haul logs on their shoulders or on their heads from the forest to the main roads for wages that barely provide for livelihood. If nothing is done to raise community awareness about existing Community Forest Laws, to provide alternative means of livelihood for the seven communities and to strengthen  community structures such as community leadership and the Forest Management Committee, it will be difficult for them to challenge an exploitative system that on the surface seems to provide basic livelihood to community dwellers. Exclusion of vast majority of community dwellers from the benefits accruing from the community natural resources may widen the gap between rich and poor and fuel future conflict and instability. 
[1] IMF Country Report on
Liberia: PRS Annual Progress Report
Sustainable Agriculture Farming for Food Security and Poverty Reduction by 200 Smallholder farmers The overall goal of the project is to strengthen Small holder farming in five selected communities of Cheesemanburg township on how to increase food and nutrition security and reduce the level of poverty using sustainable farming approach. The project will address the issues of severe food insecurity and acute poverty in the targeted communities in Cheesemanburg Township. Caritas & Development Office Monrovia will play the role of implementing partner for the Sustainable Agriculture Farming for Food Security and Poverty Reduction project with funding support from CAFOD. The key expected outcomes include: Agriculture Extension Services improved; Increased adoption of Sustainable Agriculture practices; Food crop diversification and agricultural productivity increased; Increased number of months that household production meets annual household food needs; and Smallholder farmers increased their monetary income from their farms. 
Based on the project learning and recommendations from the people and community, the partner and CAFOD Program Officer, an extension has been authorized to implement addendum activities within the approved project budget. Caritas & Development Office Monrovia is currently constructing two centers for pig farming. This is with the intend to increase income of farmers, boost sustainable organic farming practices with the use of the pig manure and improve households nutrition through the new protein source.
Livelihoods and Leadership: Tackling Gender Inequality and Sexual Violence in Conflict and Ebola Aff This project aims to enhance gender equality and women’s empowerment in Lofa, Bong and Nimba counties in conflict- and Ebola- affected Liberia. The Development Education Network – Liberia will:

•	conduct community sensitisation meetings and training sessions on issues of gender and gender-based violence (GBV) for 250 women and 250 men;
•	use community theatre to stimulate discussions around GBV and encourage communities to analyse and transform their environment;
•	provide psycho-social support and access to justice for survivors of GBV;
•	provide literacy training and health education for 125 women and girls, and vocational training for 210 women;
•	establish and provide seed grants to, savings and loan associations
Food Security for Sustainable livelihood for 450 smallholder farm families This project will aim to support smallholder rural farms in Liberia.
Liberia has faced a long civil war and is amongst the poorest in the United Nations Human Development Index (UNHDI) ranking. The worst affected people by the civil war were the rural farmers. This situation has greatly changed since the civil crisis and most smallholder farmers are now experiencing high food insecurity and are now amongst the poorest of the poor in their communities. 

Therefore, Caritas Monrovia has decided to support smallholder rural farmers through the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD). The project will support targeted communities depended only on income generated from the sale of produce from their farms to meet the needs (education, health-care and clothing) of their families. During focus groups discussions and key informants interviews which were components of a needs assessment conducted by Seed Foundation with support from Caritas & Development Office Monrovia in March 2014, the participants revealed that since the civil crisis in Liberia, smallholder rural farmers in those areas have not regained their full productive capacity.

The agricultural method practiced by most of these smallholder rural farmers cannot provide sufficient food for their families, barely three months after harvest and they have very limited access or capacity to generate income from produce on their farms; hence, their lives are characterized by high vulnerability and food insecurity and thus make it extremely difficult for them to escape the poverty trap.
CJPS - Bridging Grant The bridging grant being applied for the Center is intended to be used to bridge the funding gap in maintaining the momentum of CJPS thematic program activities and financing the core costs of the organization. 
 
In this regard, this proposal seeks to secure funding for the next six months beginning April 1 to September 30, 2012. This funding will be used for the implementation of program activities, office running and administrative costs. 

Program activities to be carried out during this bridging grant period will include the holding of consultative meetings with relevant stakeholders (i.e. Youth secretariat, community and local leaders, etc.) to review the past activities with a view of gathering data on the impacts made on the lives on the target beneficiaries and the communities.  Additionally, portion of the bridging grant will also be expended for Administrative related expenses such salaries, fuel for office vehicles and generator and office space rental.
Strengthening the Capacity of Communities to Assure their Rights under the Community Rights Law of L This project aims to protect and improve the livelihood security of poor people and their household members around the Wologizi forest in Voinjama District, Liberia. 

In 2014, with CAFOD support, the Village Development Fund (VDF) began work with communities and community structures to protect and improve their livelihood security. 

The objectives of the initial intervention were to increase the knowledge and awareness levels of communities about structures, processes, rights and entitlement of communities under the Community Rights Law of Liberia. 
As well as strengthening the Bondi Forest Management Committee to become a viable entity capable of advocating with communities in assuring community rights under the Community Rights Law of Liberia. The project also had a component on Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA) to empower community dwellers.

The Wologizi forest is surrounded by many communities; therefore any effective conservation for the forest will require the involvement of all other communities. Consequently, in 2015, VDF was seeking funding to extend the project activities further into another nineteen communities living and depending on the Wologizi forest.  

VDF proposes to extend the innovative Village Agent (VA) training program to additional communities, to increase the knowledge and awareness levels of community members about structures, processes, rights and entitlement of communities under the Community Rights Law of Liberia. As well as that VDF proposes to conduct Forest Management training and awareness raising about community Rights Law.
"Mama Na Come" Micro Finance Project CAFOD funded one year of a Micro Credit Project in 2006 which is a collaboration between the SEND Foundation of Liberia and the Liberia women’s initiative. The new proposal builds on a successful year in which in which initial objectives were addressed and partially met:

The original aim of the project was to increase livelihood security of women in the operational communities and there were two objectives: 1) to raise the  income level of not less than 700 women by more than 60 percent within  3 years; and 2) strengthen market access of rural women traders. 

In year 1, 740 women have received small loans of up to a maximum in Liberian currency equal to US$100. This was achieved with a capital amount of  US$31,000 from the orignal CAFOD grant. Interest was 4% and repayment rates are close to 100%. The scheme is functioning well but needs to be strenthened particularly in relation to savings and further group devleopment work.

Still working towards the original goal, the revised objective of project is to increase income of participating women through the building of sustainable businesses and economic activities. 

Activities over the next 12 months will include:
·1	Increase average loan size of beneficiaries by 40%
·2	Increase the number of beneficiaries in the scheme by at least 15%
·3	Develop a strategy for rolling out the saving component of the micro-finance scheme.
·4	Increase the intensity of monitoring
·5	intensify business management and solidarity group training
·6	Initiate a discussion with the leaders to determine type and value of compensation.
·7	Increasing public awareness of the scheme.
Sustaining Livelihood through Savings Initiative (SILC) Proposal The conclusion of Liberia’s 14 year civil war left few formal financial services available to Liberia’s farmers and other rural entrepreneurs, especially smallholders. While commercial banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs) exist in the country, they are mostly located in urban Areas and are  at the early stages of filtering into rural areas. Additionally, financial operators tend to discriminate based on gender and economic status. Most Rural women do not have the collateral to be able to access loan and when they do the interest rates are higher than the profits generated from the businesses. Rural farmers have had to rely on informal rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCA) typically called susus. For rural financing, susus are inadequate for a number of reasons. First they do not always generate interest making them difficult to develop, and when they do, interest rates are often too high thereby contributing to further indebting small farmers.
The Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC) methodology is a community-managed financial mechanism. This project will focus on both refugees and host families in the Glarley enclave to provide them with opportunities to create and grow wealth and thereby increase the living standards of their households. In this project, existing farmer field school groups identified in the Ivorian Refugees Emergency Response Programme (IRERP) project II will use SILC to save, obtain loans and facilitate social insurance schemes amongst themselves in groups. In addition to increasing social coherence, the project is aimed at improving cash flow management and increasing opportunities for generating alternative sources of income for vulnerable women and girls engage in farming and other income generation activities
CJPS Connect Liberia is experimenting with an emerging democracy through the election of political leadership of the executive and legislative offices in an election that was considered to be free, fair and credible by national and international organizations. Elections do not guarantee democracy however, the credibility of the electoral process and the election of Ellen Sirleaf as Africa’s first woman president have created an enormous opportunity for strengthening the democratic process in the country. This opportunity needs to be seized to transform Liberia’s political landscape through genuine participatory governance and development process that makes a difference in the lives of different social groups.     
One of the groups is young people. Programs attempting to address the plight of young people are placed under the general theme of DDRR as if all young people were members of the defunct warring factions. The prolonged nature of the conflict also limited the opportunity for other young people to attain formal education or vocational skills to enable them acquire jobs. They too have been left alone the way side and if their issues and concerns are not addressed they run the risk of becoming the new pool of disenfranchised youth to be recruited by political actors for negative purposes.  

While it is true that the government has pledged to address the plight of young people, the social and economic issues such as social exclusion, HIV/ADIS, violence, increasing urban migration and unemployment are still prevalent among them. In the midst of these complex problems facing young people, there are calls by different actors for their active participation in the political, social and economic life of the country. While this may be a genuine call, young people need to be prepared in order for them to respond to the challenges regarding their participation. Leadership and advocacy skills, responsible sexual and attitudes and behaviors to prevent acquiring HIV/AIDS, skills in responding to conflict non-violently as well as livelihood opportunities are critical issues that young people need to acquire. This will place them in a position to be able to respond positively to the challenges that may hamper their effective participation in the decision making process that affect them. This, however, requires long term engagement with young people. It is against this background that the Center for Justice and Peace Studies (CJPS) is submitting this proposal to CAFOD for five years funding to be able to provide the platform for strengthening the capacity of disadvantaged young people in three of the fifteen counties in Liberia (Margibi, Bong and Nimba).
Emergency Food Distribution for COVID-19 (Reprogrammed SDG Funds) With the Corona Virus Pandemic emergence, the funds were diverted to respond to the pandemic in Liberia. The initiative intends to provide emergency food assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic to 158 most vulnerable families in five counties in the Diocese of Cape Palmas to reduce hunger. Training and public awareness on COVID-19 signs, symptoms, mode of transmission and preventive measures will be conducted for participants and will also cover wide range of the targeted counties.

-----------------------

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development calls on member states to conduct regular and inclusive reviews of implementation progress at the National and Sub-National level. The processes should be country-led and country driven. The UN High Level political forum provides a global and central platform for follow up and review of UN Member states’ SDG implementation. The international community has been involved in the HLPF for the last 4 years and it has provided an important opportunity for governments, major groups and other multi-stakeholders to reflect, learn and improve on projects, processes and policies that feed into the achievement of the global goals.
Today’s development challenges are complex and greater than any one government can solve. A multi-stakeholder approach is critical for countries to ensure that no one is left behind in the development Agenda. Faith Based entities such as Caritas are moral , social and political agents for the promotion of integral human development and for achieving sustainable peace and security within their respective countries and communities through collaboration with governments in the national and subnational level. There is therefore a need to harness the unique capabilities of a wide range of actors through multi-thematic and multisectoral partnerships to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.