devinitorg/iati-policy-markers huggingface dataset:
Promoting rural women’s Participation in Good and Inclusive Governance –Phase II Over the last couple of years, Sierra Leone has started demonstrating the political will to implement its commitment to gender equality and the promotion of women’s and girls’ rights through the passage of a number of legislations including: The Three Gender Acts 2007, The Sexual Offences Act 2012, The Child Rights Act 2007 and the development of a number of national programmes on the protection and advancement of women and girls at all levels of society.

 Despite formal commitment and effort at the central and local level to enhance the welfare and participation of women, the women’s participation in Governance is still low especially in Kenema district where this project is located. Moreover, the inequalities and discrimination still persist especially in the rural communities in the Kenema district. As a result, the women and girls continue to be the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in present day Sierra Leone. They remain under-represented in decision-making but over-represented among the poor.

 While they represent an approximate 51.3% of the population in Sierra Leone, they still remain absent or in some cases excluded from governance and decision making processes. The UNDP report on women in Sierra Leone confirms that they are disproportionately disadvantaged by the measures of human poverty. 
A lack of formal education particularly the illiteracy of roughly four in every five women-frequently brings with it diminished self-confidence in formal communication and negotiation (UNDP Annual Report 2011). This is a major barrier to women’s engagement and involvement in governance and decision making processes and is  also being used to further perpetuate their disadvantaged situation. Low levels of schooling are compounded by inadequate opportunity for self-empowerment resulting in a heavy dependence on their male folks.
General trends in the Sierra Leonean political and governance scene indicate that women continue to significantly lag behind in representation at all levels.
Therefore to address these situations, the project intends to educate communities so women are able to participate, transform systems to improve women’s right; and move beyond the traditional economic empowerment of women. Specifically the project will build the capacities of local women to participate in local governance systems: chiefdom and district levels through life skills, adult education and engage them in savings and small business.
Emergency 2-Week Disease and Hunger Prevention Intervention *This is an emergency project. However, because it is not funded via START, RRF or GEF we are not able to set up a rapid release project*

Heavy rains in Freetown on the 14th August 2017 have caused a mud/landslide in Regent, Western Rural district and, a suburb of Freetown. The number of fatalities is still unknown, but according to the Red Cross (14/08/2017) over 312 bodies have been brought to the city mortuary. The government of Sierra Leone is currently undertaking a search and rescue operation, and expects the number of casualties to increase significantly.


StreetChild Sierra Leone plans to undertake the following emergency activities within the three mudslide-related affected communities of Regent, Kamayama and Kaningo from 18th – 31st August, 2017.

Key Interventions:
•	Providing wet food ration to 5,000 persons for 14 days
•	Contracting 30 local youths to collect waste litters in the three targeted communities, and educate the community members on putting their thrash in bins ( which will be provided by Street Child)
•	Provide basic toiletries for 2,500 affected person, of which majority will be women
Ensuring the psychosocial wellbeing and mental health Of burial team members and their households This project is aimed at providing psycho-social support to the burial teams so as members of the burial team, in Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone is experiencing an outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever (known as Ebola Virus Disease: EVD) which doctors have described as "unprecedented”, and it is spreading so fast and has become one of the deadliest in years. This is the first recorded outbreak of the EVD in Sierra Leone, where Lassa fever is commonly reported. Laboratory studies demonstrated that the highly lethal Zaire Ebola virus is responsible for the outbreak. 

As a result of the EVD outbreak, the government of Sierra Leone a public state of emergency declaring that all dead bodies should be buried by the burial teams, without washing and in body bags.  This declaration is still in place as there are still new recorded cases of Ebola in the country.  

CAFOD is implementing the Safe and Dignified Burial project in the  Kambia district which is aimed  at providing Safe and Dignified medical  Burials to dead bodies in the entire district.

To date, CAFOD has trained and is supporting burials teams and grave diggers and burial liaison officers in Kambia district. The burial teams have conducted over 2000 burials from the beginning of the project to date.  However these teams are yet to receive a robust and well-structured Psycho Social support to enable them to be more energised and mentally fit to be effective and efficient whiles conducting burials.
SL&L Programme Strategy Development, Reflection and Review This operational budget is to support the design and development of the new Programme Strategy for Sierra Leone and Liberia using the Integral Ecology Programme Model (IEPM). 
In line with ‘Our Common Home’, CAFOD has renewed its commitment to work in the most poor and vulnerable contexts in both countries by developing and adopting the Integral Ecology Programme Model (IEPM). The IEPM ensures that CAFOD works in the most disadvantaged areas, meeting the needs of the extreme poor, most vulnerable and marginalized, and the challenging environmental and climatic issues facing them.
There are seven steps in this strategy development process to be completed but the first  operational budget is focusing on the delivery of the first two steps: Situational Scoping and Programme Approaches (consultants to be hired to help facilitate the delivery of the work) and also subsequent Annual Reflection and Discernment processes.
National Caritas_Sierra Leone - Institutional Support This is an institutional support to National Caritas of Sierra Leone to help in its revitalisation and setting up the various administrative, human resources and development systems according to its operational plan submitted to CAFOD.

This will let Caritas Sierra Leone be able to work on a clear vision and direction; effectively carries out its mandate acceptable by the Bishops Conference and coordinating the developmental affairs of the Catholic Church in Sierra Leone.

Caritas Sierra Leone has submitted its Operational Plan to other Northern Caritas agencies as well in a bid to diversified funding and generate adequate funds to carry out all activities as highlighted in their Operational Plan.
Catholic Bishops Conference of Liberia (CABICOL) Annual Reflection Meeting This project is seeking to strengthen the CABICOL by creating awareness and the responsibility for the church to deliver on its mandate. This is the first step to marking clear pathways from which the church can revamp, realign and reposition itself for more robust socio-pastoral engagement in Liberia. It provides the opportunity to develop a framework from which the church will leverage on it influence and take its active and centre stage in promoting inclusive and equitable development, peace, justice, security and reconciliation in Liberia. The catholic church actively engaged in actions that promote political stability, transparency and accountability in the management of state resources for the common good and strengthened church structures through institutional reforms. To increase citizen's awareness of their rights and responsibilities to participate in and ensure that national elections are free, fair, transparent and credible to guarantee peace and stability and to identify conflict hotspots across the country and institute mechanism to avert or mitigate the emergence of violent conflicts.
Disaster response to flood victims in 2 rural communities in Pujehun Distric Following an emergency meeting held on 5 August 2019, The Office of National Security of Pujehun District and District Stakeholders declared an institutional red alert for the border chiefdom of Sorogbema in Pujehun district due to flooding caused by extremely heavy rains on the 4th to 6th August 2019. This incident surpassed the governments through the various district offices capacity to respond to the emergency with the means and resources planned in the previous year’s National Contingency Plan for the Rainy Season.   The   Contingency   Plan is   the local   Government   standing   emergency   preparedness   and response arrangement and  explicitly  includes  the  role  and contributions of the Office of National Security (ONS). When the institutional Red Alert was issued,  the  government  requested  that  ONS  assistance  is activated  and  that  ONS  mobilize  necessary  support  from humanitarian   actors   and   development   partners. This Response and Recovery Proposal is in response to that request.  According to data collected by the assessment team 97 Household were affected, 9 of the houses totally destroyed, 15 partially damaged. 11 houses were affected by the flash floods. 723  ( Adult men, women and children) in 2 rural communities ( Maleh and Solima) in 1 chiefdom. 

Public transport, basic infrastructure such as houses, schools, and health centers, bridges, roads and Telecommunications networks, have been severely damaged.  In these conditions, the return of affected communities to normality, as well as restoring basic conditions for trade and transport, will result from mid to long-term recovery process. Approximately 65,000 hectares of crops in Inland Valley Swaps (IVS) were washed away, placing about 97 families at risk of food insecurity. 
As a result of the of the disaster, 723  ( Adult men, women and children) in 2 rural communities ( Maleh and Solima) in sorogbema chiefdom. Affected families have now lost to essential basic house hold items including food items as life saving support which they have secured for their entire life time. Afected houeshold head have lost hope especially when households are not able to have three squire meal on their own there by preventing them og have a nutritious meal. this inturn exposes them to health risck especialy due to them been exposed to drinking contaminated water. Afeected households have further lost the dignity and reapect they use to enjoy.  Families including women and childern are also exposed to harsh weather conditions including cold and mosquito bite.
Learning Visit to Ethopia Having resilience enshrined in all our programs contributes towards a just world. Resilience requires that we move beyond thematic programs and consider people, the environment and the systems in which we co-exist. CAFOD Ethiopia and their strategic partnerships with organisations such as Trocaire and SCIAF stand out in the areas of Resilience and sustainability integration within their programs. In this regards, CAFOD Liberia and sierra Leone program staff and implementing partners will embark on a one week learning visit to Ethiopia for exchange of ideas on resilience integration and interventions for our own application in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The structure of the learning visits will be comprised of 3 key components: 
i)	Field visits to project communities
ii)	Understanding resilience programming and the benefits to the communities
iii)	Information exchange, sharing and use between the Ethiopia and Sierra Leone /Liberia programs teams and partners
COVID-19: Building Resilience through WASH, Sustainable Agriculture & Food and Income Security Due to the global outbreak of COVID-19 and with cases already reported in Sierra Leone, this grant was re-purposed in order to respond to the growing needs of the local community and to prevent any community transmission to the Health Clinic operated by the Handmaid Sisters. The funds will be used to procure hygiene promotion materials (buckets, soap, cleaning liquids among others) for both the clinic and surrounding communities and provide the necessary protective equipment for clinic staff (face masks, rubber boots, thermometers, goggles, hand gloves etc). 

CAFOD will also support the Handmaid Sisters to complete the construction of hand-dug wells in order to support the WASH needs of local communities; ensuring that proper prevention methods can continue through access to clean water for hand-washing. Recognizing the economic impact that lock-downs and travel restrictions will have on an already fragile economy, this project will also work to support local communities through agricultural training on post harvest losses, and provide inputs in the form of tools, seeds, small ruminants and goats. The Handmaid Sisters will also seek to improve the economic resilience of women and vulnerable individuals through a micro-loan scheme.
Presidential Election & Media Monitoring – Sierra Leone Votes! In collaboration with Open Society Initiative West Africa (OSIWA), Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) is supporting local partners to implement a citizen engagement initiative involving all stakeholders across Sierra Leone and the diaspora. The initiative is intended to strengthen capacity particularly of young persons to create alternative effective platforms for information collection and dissemination and promote access to information for citizens to meaningfully participate in local electoral processes to ensure a transparent, inclusive, responsive and accountable leadership after the March 7, 2018 elections.
Skills Training support to Vulnerable communities in Bombali District This project intends to empower the target beneficiaries in marginalized and vulnerable selected communities in the Bombali district in Tailoring skills . It is hope that this project will present an opportunity to selected beneficiaries to live better lives and also render service to their communities.
Women and Girls FIRST in Sierra Leone - CAFOD Operational Budget The overall objective of the proposed initiative is to strengthen resilience and improve financial inclusion of rural communities, particularly women and girls in Sierra Leone. Specifically, the project will aim to achieve the following: 

1. Improved knowledge and understanding of financial skills and money management among rural communities, especially women;
2. Rural communities, especially women, able to access inclusive and needs-driven financial products and services and;
3. Financial empowerment of rural women and girls through improved leadership and job skills and strengthening of women-led enterprises.
Women and Girls FIRST in Sierra Leone - Mosabi Operational Budget The overall objective of the proposed initiative is to strengthen resilience and improve financial inclusion of rural communities, particularly women and girls in Sierra Leone. Specifically, the project will aim to achieve the following: 

1. Improved knowledge and understanding of financial skills and money management among rural communities, especially women;
2. Rural communities, especially women, able to access inclusive and needs-driven financial products and services and;
3. Financial empowerment of rural women and girls through improved leadership and job skills and strengthening of women-led enterprises.
Improved WASH facilities and livelihoods promotion in Bo Diocese The background of the project aims to contribute to CAFOD’s thematic areas including Livelihood, Water and Sanitation, Agriculture and socio economic opportunities for women. It will contribute to CAFOD’s Food and Livelihoods Security and the Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery thematic programme frameworks – as set out in the CAFOD Sierra Leone and Liberia Country Strategy Paper (2016-2021).  
The project will be implemented in communities that were not directly affected by Ebola but have been affected by the general restriction of movement (impacting on sale of agricultural outputs) and additional burdens of extended family members who had lost parents/carers to Ebola. The outcomes of this project are in line with the Sierra Leonean Presidents’ Recovery Priorities, which is a 24 month plan that includes Water and Agriculture as key sectors.   
Missionary Sisters of our lady of the Holy Rosary (MSHR) with good track record of implementing with CAFOD will be working closely with the rural water and sanitation in providing communities with access to safe drinking water where there is the need and a hygienic environment. The project also aims to collaborate with the Ministry of Agriculture and IITA for access to improved seeds with technical trainings and supervision.
Improving Community Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (IC-WASH) in Kpatema, Kakuwa Chiefdom, Bo District This project intends to improve the health and well-being of 1,150 poor and vulnerable people of Kpaterna, Sierra Leone. 

Sierra Leone remains one of the least developed nations in the world. Poverty is widespread and inequalities pervasive; gender discrimination poses a significant barrier to women and girls. In some cases, the situation is deteriorating, both at the local and national levels.  Overall, 46% of the population in Sierra Leone has access to improved drinking water sources. Over half of the population in the south gets its water from unsafe sources.

Lack of access to safe water not only worsens rates of malnutrition, it is directly linked to child survival and impedes development efforts. Beyond immediate health risks, inadequate water supply and sanitation carry negative consequences for women and girls who shoulder the bulk of responsibility for collecting water.

The magnitude of demands for improved water sources in Kpatema community requires intensified efforts. Kpatema has long been excluded from previous WASH and other development interventions by NGOs. At present, Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary of the Bo Diocese is the only NGO implementing the Livelihood project in the community. 

In Kpatema community, there are no safe water sources and no indication that the government or another NGO will address this problem with immediate urgency. The community members are continually forced to rely on unprotected wells, rivers, streams, and swamps for drinking water that are often contaminated. The problem is aggravated by the absence of latrines leading many communities to dispose of human waste into water sources. 

Therefore the project aims to improve the health and well-being of 1,150 poor and vulnerable people of Kpatema community of Bo District through the provision of safe water, reliable sanitation, hygiene and sustainable water management. The WASH project will complement the child survival and development programme at UNICEF. It is hoped that this project’s interventions can improve knowledge, attitudes and practice in safe water, hygiene and sanitation at community level, including wider hand-washing campaigns.
Responding to Ebola Epidemic in Sierra Leone through Social Mobilization in Kailahun and Kenema Dist To contain the spread of the virus in the nine affected and districts at risk effective community mobilisation on understanding the disease and preventive measures is fundamental. Therefore CAFOD with other Catholic Development Agencies provided funds to National Caritas of Sierra Leone to complement the efforts of government to contain the spread of the disease in the affected districts of Kailahun and Kenema, and districts at risk (Kono) by scaling up effective community-based awareness raising. The project intervention logic include 1) selection of 100 community advocate (CA) from the Catholic Parishes in the affected area and training them for two day on prevention measure of EVD, 2) work closely with Ministry of Health and Sanitation, UNICEF, MSF and WHO to review and update current IEC material on Ebola, and 3) conducting 10 consecutive sensitizations during Sunday masses.
CAFOD & EC Funded Unlocking the Potential of the Moringa Cake project - Caritas Kenema This project aims to address the issue of both short and long term income and food insecurity of vulnerable Sierra Leoneans in Kenema and Bombali Districts. 

This will be done through the sustainable development of small scale poultry and inland fisheries production schemes. The project intends to use innovative and locally appropriate approaches and technologies to improve production in both poultry and fish farming, as a way of enhancing communities livelihoods options. 

It will benefit vulnerable populations, especially women and youth affected by years of conflict in Sierra Leone thereby contributing to the realisation of MDG 1 (i.e. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger) and support youth employment initiatives in the Country.
Promoting national cohesion peace consolidation and youths’ transformation with employability skills The proposed project is designed specifically to consolidate the political intolerance and fragile peace triggered by the national political activities rooted in the political power desire. The proposed project will further integrate livelihoods approach specifically targeting youths in the informal setting primarily use for political gains to orchestrate civil unrest and political violence. 
The project is embedded with three prone intentions which are:
 * Strengthen faith leaders and youths’ capacities to enhance their constructive engagements with state actors, non-state actors and communities on peace mediation and reconciliation.
 * Facilitate coordination among state and non-state actors to identify election conflict drivers, grievances, and inclusive approaches to address them.
 * Transformative strategy for youths in the informal setting/sector through the integration of resilience livelihoods thereby forestalling self-reliance and employability. 
The entire project concept is linked to CAFOD’s programme strategy  which include:
 * Improved Governance and
 * Resilience Livelihood.
The proposed project will play positive role in building peace in local communities and nationwide which resonate with CRS’ Education for a Culture of Peace  programme areas of intervention.
The entire project will be implemented jointly by the two partners (Inter Religious Council of Sierra Leone and Future View Salone) with funding support from CAFOD and CRS. However, IRCSL is the Lead Applicant and bears the responsibility of accountability to CAFOD and CRS.
Walk the talk: Driving social accountability to accelerate implementation of the SDG’s As a way of engaging and promoting CAFOD’s commitment to Pope Francis, Laudato-Si (139) that calls for an integrated approach  to combating, poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded  and to protecting nature, this work  fulfils part of the blueprints to  realising Pope Francis vision and lays the foundation for CAFOD’s development priorities. While the SDG’s agenda deals with a wide range of issues and  implementation challenges, CAFOD’s Agenda T-2020 Action is endearing  to look at ways these broad but all highly important  goals are incorporated within national frameworks and how the  embolden hope that promises  “leave no –one behind” can be universally acheived.  The project  will focus on supporting CAFOD partner  -National Caritas  to engage with CSOs at national level  to influence governments for the effective implementation and monitoring of the SDGs.