NMJD PAST EXPERIENCES

NMJD’s work focuses on building capacities of individuals, communities, groups and organizations to participate and influence decision-making at local, district and national levels, as well as to enable citizens to demand their rights and accountability from their leaders. Over the years, NMJD carried out series of activities to the effect, some of which were done in collaboration with other organizations operating in and outside Sierra Leone. Below are some of NMJD’s core experiences gained over time:

NMJD’s Experiences in Mobilizing and Organizing Citizens and Communities 

  • NMJD worked closely with the UNDP Office in Sierra Leone in 2003 to increase the involvement of citizens in the formulation of the Sierra Leone Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (SL-PRSP). With funds from the UNDP, NMJD organized district-level consultations and sensitization around the PRSP in all the (then) 14 districts of the country, reaching out to all the 149 chiefdoms in Sierra Leone. Following these initial engagements, NMJD also partnered with Action Aid Sierra Leone in the civic engagements process, which aimed at educating the masses about the importance of the process and putting community structures in place to enhance citizens participation. During these engagements, District Focal Persons and District Task Teams were set up to continue to engage and interrogate the process. These Task Teams were later recognized by the Government of Sierra Leone, and they supported them to take the process down to local communities across the country. Because of its leadership role in these engagements, NMJD was invited to present a briefing paper to the Sierra Leone Development Partnership Committee (DEPAC) meeting in Freetown on the information we generated from the engagements with local communities across the country. The reports of the district level consultations were also shared with the Poverty Alleviation Strategy Coordination Office (PASCO), who used them to write the SLPRSP, especially the Chapter on Sierra Leone’s poverty profile. There is a whole paragraph in the SL-PRSP devoted to NMJD in recognition of their contributions to the process.

 

  • In collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and DFID, NMJD organized a national training on budgetary processes for CSOs and District Budget Oversight Committees (DBOCs) from across the country in Freetown in early 2004. DFID provided funds to the Ministry of Finance to organize this training, but it made three attempts without success. Because of NMJD’s long years of experience in organizing events of this nature, the Ministry of Finance requested NMJD for collaboration and partnership. NMJD provided leadership and successfully organized the training within two weeks. All the resource persons came from Ghana and South Africa. This training was premised on the belief that CSOs could only be more effective in monitoring and interrogating the public service delivery pipe if their knowledge and skills on budgetary processes were enhanced.

 

  • Following the rebel invasion of Sierra Leone’s capital city, Freetown, in January 1999, NMJD undertook a survey titled Counting the Costs of the War. The objective of the survey was to document the economic, social, cultural, political and infrastructural costs of the war on the county and its people. The report of the survey was so revealing that, World Vision International Sierra Leone teamed up with NMJD to formally launch the survey report in all regions of the country with the main objective of generating national discussions on the causes and effects of the war. These engagements led to the overwhelming consensus of civil society to come together and play their part in ending the civil war and restoring peace and democracy to the country. This consensus led to the formation of the Civil Society Movement Sierra Leone (CSM-SL), which was initially called Citizens Security Movement. The CSM-SL served as the umbrella body for all CSOs, CBOs and trade groups in the country with the objective of supporting and collaborating with progressive organizations, institutions and individuals in and outside the country to end the civil war and restore peace and democracy. NMJD did not only play a foundational role in the formation of CSM-SL, but also contributed immensely to strengthening and positioning it well to discharge its mandate by linking it with resources and opportunities, especially during its embryonic stage.

 

  • NMJD partnered with other CSOs, CBOs and NGOs to establish the Budget Advocacy Network (BAN) as a coalition of CSOs whose primary focus is on promoting financial accountability and transparency in the public sector. BAN engages and monitors the disbursement, utilization and accountability of public funds. It participates in budget discussions and it also gives expert opinions on budgetary issues from the perspective of civil society.

 

  • NMJD mobilized other civil society organizations and relevant partners to form the national-level Taskforce on Public Disclosures. The Taskforce comprises civil society, government and mining companies. The objective of forming the Taskforce is to ensure there is transparency and accountability of monies and other resources mining companies give back to host mining communities by way of taxes, corporate social responsibility and other statutory obligations. Initially, all transactions related to these monies were handled by the Paramount Chiefs and their cohorts only, leaving out majority of the people who bore the brunt of the negative impacts of the operations of mining companies; they were neither involved nor benefitting. But with the establishment of the Taskforce, though it was challenging in the beginning, mining companies now do public disclosures of monies and other resources they plough back to the affected mining communities for development purposes. This way, more community people now benefit from these monies. This is because the public disclosures enable affected communities to know the amounts of monies given to their communities and who receives these monies on behalf of their respective communities, unlike in the past when they did not know anything.

 

  • Following keen observation of trends and anecdotal reports indicating a decline in social movements and civic space in Sierra Leone, NMJD collaborated with other CSOs on series of engagements to evidence the environment and circumstances. A clear desire on the part of the collaborating CSOs was to use the evidence to re-engineer civil society in Sierra Leone that was more cohesive, visionary, better coordinated, dynamic, responsive, and respected. An exercise to build the profile of civil society organizations in Sierra Leone was done at the end of 2012 and a study of civil society networks and platforms was also conducted. The knowledge derived from these efforts became the rallying point for like-minded civil society organizations to undertake a number of building-blocks and synergic activities to redress the decline of social activism. As outcomes, on 15 August 2016, a national Civil Society Conference was held in Kenema on the theme “Towards Building Social Movements in Sierra Leone”. The Conference’s outcomes culminated into the formation of the National Civil Society Forum Sierra Leone (NCSF-SL). The primary objective of the NCSF is to contribute to building a society where the voices, aspirations and rights of the people are always the uncompromised point of reference in the pursuit of good governance, security and public goods and services. The Forum has successfully established coordinating and advocacy civil society platforms in all the 16 districts of the country.
  • NMJD facilitated the formation of Independent Monitoring Teams (IMTs) in the Western Area Rural, Bombali and Kono districts. The IMTs comprised civil society actors identified in the three districts and equipped them with the necessary knowledge, skills and tools to monitor the service delivery in the health and education sectors. The IMTs major objective was to ensure accountability and transparency in budgetary and policy processes with the view to increasing citizens’ access to quality health and education services. NMJD carried out surveys in the targeted districts in which the communities were very much involved. Baseline data on key performance indicators in these sectors were established. The exercise provided NMJD with relevant and reliable information about the challenges faced by these communities in the areas of health, sanitation and education. NMJD collaborated in this with state and non-state actors. Amongst the non-state actors were sector-based organizations like the Sierra Leone Teachers Union (SLTU) and the Sierra Leone Nurses Association (SLNA), whilst the state actors included National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA), Local Councils and District Budget Oversight Committees (DBOCs). The IMTs were very effective in monitoring the work of contractors and the utilization of public resources. In order to strengthen and formalize these collaborative partnerships, NMJD signed MoUs with all the local councils and sector-based organizations in the operational districts.
  • NMJD worked with other CSOs in the sub-region to form the Mano River Union Civil Society Natural Resource Rights and Governance Platform (MRU CSO Platform). The MRU CSO Platform is a network of environmental, land and human rights defenders; indigenous, urban slums and communities affected by the operations of multinational corporations; Its membership is drawn from nine of the fifteen countries in West Africa, namely: Liberia, Sierra Leone, La Cote D’Ivoire, Guinea, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Niger and Senegal. The Platform has succeeded in bring together civil society activists in the sub-region regularly to share information, ideas and tools and to strengthen coordination and partnerships.
  • NMJD played (and continues to play) a role in the formation and maintenance of several networks and coalitions here in Sierra Leone and abroad. Key amongst them are: Campaign for Just Mining, Civil Society Alternative Process Sierra Leone, National Advocacy Coalition on Extractives, Community Radio Network, Association of Journalists on Mining and Extractives, Global Call to Action Against Poverty Sierra Leone Chapter, African Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society, Kimberley Process (KP), West Africa Rights-Based Advocacy Network, National Forum for Human Rights and Partners in Conflict Transformation. All of these platforms are meant to maximize citizens’ participation and influence in decision-making processes.
  • NMJD is a founding member and the National Coordinator of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty Sierra Leone (GCAP-SL) Chapter. Since its formation in March 2005, NMJD worked closely with other organizations to coordinate the activities of GCAP-SL, as well as mobilizing CSOs to STAND UP against poverty and inequality. In collaboration with Action Aid International Sierra Leone, OXFAM GB, Christian Aid UK and other CSOs, poverty issues such as the rising debts portfolio of the country, lack of access to clean water, poor health and sanitation were brought forward to the national discourse. The Campaign was also able to link poor service delivery to several factors like bad governance, trade imbalances and international aid architecture. The fight against poverty cannot be won without good governance where citizens’ participation and the enjoyment of their fundamental rights is unfettered. This is where national governments and their development partners should make politics and aid work for the poor. GCAP-SL is a coalition of over 100 CSOs, including journalists, religious bodies, youth and women’s groups, farmers associations and trade unions across the country.

NMJD’s Experiences Working on Peace and Transitional Justice

  • After the civil war ended in January 2002 and with support from the Canadian Peace Fund, NMJD implemented the Culture of Peace project in the southern and eastern regions of Sierra Leone. As part of the project’s activities, NMJD identified, trained and deployed Peace Promoters in the project communities. The main task of the Peace Promoters was to resolve conflicts between and among these communities and to help them co-exist in peace and harmony through forgiveness and reconciliation. It was a dicey situation then to see those that caused mayhem and heinous crimes in their own communities returning home to the very communities they had perpetrated atrocities during the war. The Peace Promoters were trained in skills and tools they should use to engage both the victims and perpetrators and get them to forgive and accept each other in order for peace to reign in their communities.
  • Another tool NMJD used effectively to bring communities together, embrace and accept each other was football. Serious problems existed in some of these communities even before the war broke out; these problems emanated mainly from bush/land boundary cases and woman palava, some of them were inherited. The war only helped to ignite the situation and make it more volatile. There was no let up to the hostilities that characterized the relationships between and among these communities even after the war, some of them were not on speaking terms and only waiting for the slightest opportunity to explode. Knowing the power and passion which football wields, NMJD organized football galas involving these communities. We provided match and training balls for each community, playing boots/crepes, shorts and shirts for the players, and other incentives such as food. Musical sets and public address systems were used during games to play songs that promoted peace, forgiveness and to communicate similar messages before the matches started, during half-time breaks and after the games. It was a bit challenging in the beginning, but as time went on, everyone was looking forward to these footballing events and the healing process became quicker than we had anticipated.
  • NMJD played a direct part in the brokering of the peace, which Sierra Leoneans are enjoying today after 11 years of a brutal civil war. NMJD was one of the organizations that represented the wider Serra Leonean civil society to the peace negotiations in Lome, Togo, which eventually resulted in the signing of the Lome Peace Accord in July 1999 that heralded peace to the country. As independent observers, NMJD and other organizations and institutions embarked on several shuttle diplomacy targeting the conflicting parties and other key strategic stakeholders.
  • Also, when the Lome Peace Accord came under serious threats of falling apart following the arrest and detention of about 500 UN Peacekeepers by the RUF rebels and the corresponding rising tensions across the country, NMJD together with other organizations and institutions organized a mass protest march to the residence of the RUF leader, Cpl Foday Saybana Sankoh, on 8th May 2000 to save the peace process from collapse. 22 protesters lost their lives. This daring action by CSOs and Parliament was a watershed in the peace process and the already flip-flopping peace process was finally rescued.
  • NMJD worked with UNAMSIL and other CSOs to establish the National Forum for Human Rights (NFHR) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) whose main objective was to document the true account of the 11 years civil war, including stories of both victims and perpetrators, and the factors that triggered the war.
  • NMJD was a member of the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP), which was headed by the former leader of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), Major Johnny Paul Koroma. The CCP was one of the post-civil war structures that were provided for in the Lome Peace Accord.

NMJD’s Experiences Working on Gender Issues

  • Gender is a cross-cutting issue in NMJD; everything that is said and done within NMJD and with our partners must be done with a gender consideration. This is the result of long years of experience working closely on gender issues at the local, district and national levels. NMJD established the Gender Advocacy Programme (GAP) in 1997 to serve as a vanguard for promoting gender justice and gender mainstreaming in its operational communities. Under the GAP project, NMJD organized several gender awareness trainings and other learning events across the country individually and in collaboration with other organizations and agencies. These events resulted in the formation of several community women’s advocacy groups such as the Ngoyala Women’s Group and Gbotima Women’s Group in Bo, as well as the Neighbourhood Women’s Group in Kenema.  Members of these groups were trained in gender concepts, gender empowerment, gender consciousness, gender justice, gender assertiveness, leadership, group formation and management and affirmative action, amongst others. These groups subsequently came together to form the Gender Empowerment Movement (GEM) to serve as an umbrella body for all gender advocacy groups. GEM worked closely with the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs on issues of gender. NMJD has also developed an organizational Gender Policy to ensure the rights of male and female staff of the organization, as well as local communities where we work, are recognized and respected.
  • NMJD worked with women in five refugee and displaced camps in the eastern and southern regions. The refugees were mainly from Liberia. The objective of our intervention was to educate, sensitize and raise the awareness of inmates of the camps about gender-based violence, which was then very prevalent in these refugee and displaced camps. NMJD organized trainings on the rights and freedoms of women as espoused in our national laws and other international legal instruments to which Sierra Leone is a member. The trainings were also meant to strengthen the knowledge base of women and build their confidence to speak out and guard their rights.

NMJD ’s Experiences Working on Education

  • NMJD has been supporting informal education in the different local communities where it operates. NMJD started its functional adult education programme with the Refugee Vulnerable Working Group in Guinea in 1994 under its Refugee Support Programme. NMJD trained refugees in and around Gueckedou in soap making, gara tie and dye, tailoring etc. Non-refugee groups like the Sayanin Women’s Group also benefited from this training package. Back home, NMJD introduced functional adult literacy in Bumpe Ngao, Bo district, in 1997. Today, NMJD is holding adult literacy sessions in other vulnerable communities in Bo (southern region), Kenema (eastern region), Karene and Bombali districts (north-western region). Under the Youth Empowerment Programme also, NMJD organized life skills training/development programmes for physically challenged youths in Kenema and Kono. The areas of training for them included soap making, gara tie and dye, black smithery, painting and decoration, hair dressing, tailoring, computer, etc. Beneficiaries of these skills development and functional adult literacy are now using skills they acquired to make a decent living and reduce their dependency on others.
  • Also, through the Ambassador’s Girls Scholarship Programme of the US Embassy in Sierra Leone, NMJD supported hundreds of girls in primary and junior secondary schools in Kono district. The beneficiaries of this Programme were drawn from poor and economic hardship homes. The beneficiary girls were provided with books, uniforms and other school materials. NMJD monitored the performance of the beneficiaries to ensure the scholarships achieved the intended objective.

 

  • NMJD has a team of experienced and dedicated trainers, resource persons and facilitators that are providing capacity building services to CSOs, CBOs and NGOs (national and international) through its Leadership, Learning and Development (L&D) Unit. The L&D Team offers both training and capacity building services such as transformational leadership, DELTA, conflict transformation, gender, REFLECT approach to adult education, etc and non-training services like learning needs assessment, Organisation Assessment, coaching and mentoring support, strategic review and strategic plan development.

 

NMJD’s Experiences Working on Human Security and Access to Justice

  • Between 1999 and 2000, NMJD collaborated with Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) to carry out research on the role of diamonds in fueling the civil war in Sierra Leone. This exercise resulted in the launch of the report entitled: The Heart of the Matter: Sierra Leone Diamonds and Human Security in The report contained wide ranging recommendations directed at different stakeholders including government, civil society, international community and corporate mining entities. NMJD took the lead in mobilizing and organizing CSOs into advocacy platforms. Several trainings and other capacity building events aimed at ensuring CSOs participation, especially host mining communities, in the industry were facilitated. These efforts have seen the establishment of civil society advocacy platforms such as the Campaign for Just Mining, Women’s Forums on Mining, Schools Clubs on Mining, Affected Property Owners Association, Association of Journalists on Mining and Women on Mining and Extractives. These platforms are today used by CSOs to increase their participation in activities of the mining industry and to influence decision and policy making processes. NMJD has since been working with local mining communities to ensure they derive maximum benefits from their God-given natural resources by advocating for responsible and responsive mining and transparency in the utilization of monies paid by companies to affected mining communities. All these efforts are aimed at reducing grievances of host mining communities and ultimately the potentials for the eruption of conflicts.

 

  • NMJD has a paralegal component that focuses on giving access to justice for the poor and marginalized, especially those living in rural communities. This component was established to address the high spate of human rights abuses that were taking place in rural communities, perpetuated mainly by local court chairmen and other influential citizens in these communities. The paralegal component is implemented in ten chiefdoms in Bo, Kailahun, Kenema and Kono districts. Paralegals are trained and paralegal centres established in local communities where they are deployed to monitor the administration of justice in those communities, as well as to engage these communities to mitigate conflict situations. Local court chairmen, court clerks and other community leaders in the project areas have been trained in governance and human rights issues using the Sierra Leone Constitution of 1991 and other relevant legal documents. The paralegals are now working closely with local court chairmen and other chiefs to minimize the excesses of the “Kangaroo” courts. Since the paralegals arbitrate in cases without levying fines, the community people now prefer to take their grievances to the paralegal centres rather than to their local chiefs. This was the source of conflicts between paralegals and the local courts, but there is now an understanding which sees local court chairmen even inviting paralegals to monitor court proceedings or even refer certain matters to them for arbitration.

 

NMJD’s Experiences Working on HIV and AIDs

  • NMJD had a HIV and AIDS component under its Youth Empowerment Programme in 2001. The focus of the HIV and AIDS project was on raising awareness about HIV and AIDS and distributing condoms to reduce vulnerability to the disease. The project was implemented in Kenema and Kono districts in the eastern region of the country. Youths are arguably the most sexually active and therefore a high-risk group for HIV and AIDS. In order to broaden its scope of work and deepen its engagement with the targeted groups, NMJD facilitated the establishment of Peer Educators in secondary schools in Kenema and Kono and Youths Against Aids in operational communities. These groups were trained and provided with the necessary support like megaphones, batteries, t-shirts, musical equipment, etc to make their awareness raising work more effective. NMJD organized annual events like Games for Life, Mini Marathons, HIV and AIDS Exhibitions and Debates, Drama and Quiz competitions for schools. NMJD also collaborated with like-minded organizations and institutions across the country to organize solidarity and commemorative events on HIV and AIDS like World’s AIDS Day.

 

NMJD’s Experiences Working on Health, Sanitation and Food Security/Livelihoods

  • Following the rebel invasion of Freetown in January 1999 in which over 5,000 people were killed, there was a serious threat of cholera outbreak in the city. This was due to the deteriorating health and hygiene situation of the city, with serious air and water pollution. With support from the Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), NMJD undertook mass education and awareness raising campaign at Dworzak in central Freetown. Dworzak is one of the most deplorable slums in Freetown; it’s heavily populated, but with very limited social services that are not commensurate with the population. As a result, majority of the people in this slum relied on streams and other water catchments for their water supply. It was these same streams that they also used for latrines. The situation was worse off in the dry season when the streams dried up. This made Dworzak a potential candidate for the then looming cholera outbreak. NMJD engaged the Dworzak community in a series of meetings, consultations, focus group discussions aimed at educating the community to adopt best hygiene and sanitation practices. These engagements helped to mitigate what would have been a disaster. The cholera finally broke out, but it effects on the Dworzak community was marginal.

 

  • Furthermore, with support from the Canadian Feed the Children, NMJD implemented a water and sanitation project in two communities in the Western Area (Dworzak and Yams Farm) and five villages in Bumpe Gao chiefdom in Bo district, southern Sierra Leone. These communities were provided with protected water wells and VIP latrines. NMJD collaborated with officials of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the Sierra Leone Water Company (SALWACO) in the implementation of the project, since these institutions had the needed technical expertise to deliver the project. NMJD Animators were on the ground to provide supportive supervision and monitoring to ensure that the specifications of the projects were not deviated from. In order to ensure beneficiary communities derived maximum benefits from these services, as well as to sustain them, NMJD facilitated the formation of community groups charged with the responsibility to manage the water wells and latrines in the most efficient manner. NMJD provided WATSAN training for the groups on how to operate the hand pumps of the water wells, chlorinate the water wells and maintain a clean and hygienic environment where the water wells and latrines were sited. As a result of the training they received, the groups were able to develop and enforce by-laws on the use and management of the water wells and latrines.

 

  • Action Aid International Sierra Leone (AAISL) and other CSOs including NMJD undertook extensive research on the situation of water in Freetown in the Western Area. The study was conducted to analyze the socio-economic and distributional impact of the water sector (Guma Valley Water Company) on the well-being or welfare of different stakeholder groups with specific focus on the poor and vulnerable in relation to tariff structure, penalties for user non-compliance, and the payment plans put in place to address the problems associated with collection of arrears of bills. Over and above all, the study also looked at the rights-based approach to the problem of water in the country. CSOs that participated in the study, including NMJD, were of the strong conviction that the rights-based approach, and not for profit, should inform the process of providing water to the citizens. At the time of the research, it was reported that Guma Valley Water Company was collecting very marginal revenue from standpipe users; they were therefore constrained to improve or maintain the quality of their services. Accountability in public governance demands that duty bearers are obliged to protect, respect and fulfill the rights of their citizens. Therefore, governments are expected to uphold the rights of citizens to control and access quality public essential services. The survey tried to provide civil society perspective with respect to the ways to access safe drinking water, and highlight the constraints that poor people faced.

 

  • Between 2002 and 2006, NMJD provided agricultural support to local communities in Gorama Kono chiefdom in Kono district, Bumpe Ngao chiefdom in Bo district, and Small Bo chiefdom in Kenema district. The main objective of this intervention was to help these communities whose main vocation was (and still is) farming to rebuild their shattered lives once again. These communities lost everything they had worked for to the war. In addition to supporting them with building materials to rebuild their houses, NMJD also provided them with seeds, food for work, as well as domestic animals like goats and sheep to restock their animal husbandry.

 

  • In 2009, NMJD implemented the sustainable livelihoods project in ten chiefdoms in the south and eastern regions of the country. The purpose of this project was to promote food security in the project communities through the creation of local seed banks, construction of grain stores and drying floors, mobilization and organization of farmers into groups and distribution of seeds, tools and other implements to farmers. This was a one-year project supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (D&P).

 

  • Also, between 2011 and 2013, NMJD implemented the food security project (Producing better, together and forever) in five districts in the southern and eastern regions. The project was geared towards working with farmers to improve their productivity, in terms of quantity and quality of food, through the use of improved farming methods and new seed varieties, as well as improving the conservation and distribution of harvest and organizing themselves into strong groups of farmers. The project was also designed to empower women and youth farmers in order to improve their participation and their control in the food production chain. The groups were supported to set up strong leaderships through democratic processes, develop bye laws, open own bank accounts and source funding. Over 4000 farmers benefitted directly from the project. The Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) and D&P supported this project.

 

NMJD’s Experiences Working on Land Governance Issues

  • With support from Cordaid, NMJD worked on land advocacy in eight districts of Sierra Leone: Kono and Kenema (east), Bo and Pujehun (south), Western Area Urban and Western Area Rural (Western Area) and Bombali and Port Loko (north). The project sought to work with local communities to identify the social, environmental, economic and cultural impacts of large-scale investments in land, and to build the capacities of affected communities to enable them engage in effective lobbying and advocacy. Our intervention was also intended to equip affected communities with knowledge and skills and build their confidence to demand due process and participation in negotiations for the use of their lands.
  • Global “Land for Life – making policies work for food security” is an initiative intended to support Multi-Actor Partnership (MAP) working on land governance. It is implemented in four African countries (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Liberia and Sierra Leone) with the aim of contributing to the formulation and implementation of land governance policies and responsible agricultural investments by bringing different concerned stakeholders together and formulating multi-actor-partnerships. The initiative is a joint endeavour of five partners (NMJD in Sierra Leone, CPF in Burkina Faso, RRF in Liberia, FSS (Forum for Social Studies) in Ethiopia, and Welt HungerHilfe (German Development Cooperation) across those countries), and co-financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).  In Sierra Leone, the initiative is at its pilot phase and it is implemented in five districts – Kenema, Pujehun, Port Loko, Kailahun and Tonkolili. The other implementing partners are PICOT, UPHR, SiLNoRF, C.E.P.A in collaboration with different stakeholders including regional policy makers, representatives of civil society organizations and the private sector operating in the region. Despite the structured dialogue and collaboration among the multi-actors in the partnership, the initiative is designed to carry out assessments on the existing legal framework on land governance, smallholder agriculture and agricultural investments in Sierra Leone.