Sierra Leone Food and Nutrition Security Policy Implementation Plan.

The Sierra Leone Food and Nutrition Security Policy Implementation Plan is a sectoral national plan of Sierra Leone. It is in force for the period of 2012-2016. Its overall target is to reduce malnutrition rates among infants and young children in Sierra Leone by 30% by 2016.
According to the Plan, tackling the challenge of malnutrition requires an integrated approach associated with the three underlying causes of insufficient access to food, inadequate maternal and child care practices, and poor water sanitation and inadequate health services.
To address the underlying causes of malnutrition in Sierra Leone, interventions were identified which among others include: (1) improving breastfeeding and complementary feeding; (2) increasing micronutrient intake; (3) improving diarrhoea and parasite control; (4) treating acute malnutrition; (5) improving household food security; (6) improving maternal nutrition; and (7) improving nutritional status of people living with HIV/AIDS/TB, orphans and vulnerable children and reduce prevalence of non-communicable diseases.
For improving breastfeeding and complementary feeding, the following strategies are envisaged, among others, under the document: developing policy/strategy document on infant and young child feeding and review existing guidelines, as well as developing and adapting the code on marketing of breast milk substitutes to the local country situation. The code will provide national legal framework on the use and marketing of milk substitutes without compromising good practices for early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding.
In order to increase micronutrient intake, the Plan provides for the following strategies, among others: fortifying widely used foods such as cooking oil with Vitamin A by providing nutritional technical assistance and incentives to the private sector; promoting the production and consumption of Vitamin A rich foods, promoting food diversification through recipe development, nutrition education and information campaigns; promoting zinc fortification for staples; promoting consumption of iodised salt and ensure that all imported or locally produced salts for human and animal consumption are fortified with adequate levels of iodine.
The Plan aims to strengthen the institutional framework and implement national food standards and laws including code and guidelines on food hygiene for locally produced and imported foods as well as to promote safety and quality of food sold by food companies and vendors to the public and to ensure it complies with best practices on food safety and hygiene.
For food security, the Plan provides for multiple strategies, which include goals (1) to promote production and consumption of diversified foods and adoption of appropriate feeding practices especially for vulnerable groups; (2) to develop an extension training module on production, processing and utilisation of locally produced nutritious foods to be incorporated into the farmer field school’s curriculum; (3) to promote access to credit/savings and loan facilities to small scale farmers especially targeting women; (4) to integrate nutrition in the education curriculum and roll out in the university (agriculture extension), in the curriculum of basic education at primary and all secondary schools in the country; (5) to promote research on nutritious foods and appropriate technologies and disseminate results through the agriculture extension service; (6) to advocate for women to access land for farming, credit and production resources for improved livelihoods support as stated in the gender policy; (7) to promote post-harvest handling, preservation, value addition, safety and storage of foods at farm and household levels, and to develop capacities of households on indigenous technical knowledge on safe handling, preservation, value addition and storage of food products; (8) to support farmers to process and add value to their farm produce; and (9) to develop a clear definition and strategy of identifying vulnerable groups in the community to be supported through cash and food for work.
Finally, the document notes that an emergency nutrition platform will be established to plan and respond to disasters. The cluster will work closely with other emergency preparedness mechanisms. The Plan is proposing to establish a Strategic Grain Reserve in Sierra Leone. The purpose of the reserve will be to hold physical stockpile of rice, or its cash equivalent, to serve as a buffer against food emergencies arising from production shocks and rapid food price inflation. In addition the reserve will also serve to provide commodity loans to recognized organisations.
Currently, monitoring of interventions is done in each sector through established monitoring and reporting systems. All sectors will be encouraged to integrate nutrition indicators into their monitoring and reporting systems. At the national level joint supervision between the UN and the MOHS is done on a quarterly basis. At the district level, the nutritionists are responsible for supervising nutrition interventions in all PHUs.