Preparing to assess vulnerability levels among farmers

A vulnerability survey of farming populations, now under preparation in Sierra Leone, is to be completed in December, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Action (OCHA) reported in its latest situation report on the West African country. The findings of the survey will be used for planning and implementing interventions in the field of agriculture in 2003, OCHA said in its September report. The survey will be conducted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. The report said NGOs and other agencies were involved in planning the exercise, aimed at giving a holistic picture of the level, type and location of vulnerable farming populations, production and cereal self-sufficiency, and agricultural interventions required in 2003. The report also said the government was rehabilitating projects in the northern district of Tonkolili, including primary schools and a town market. The UK Department for International Development (DFID) has opened an office in Magburaka, located in Tonkolili, and was rehabilitating a ferry, a police station, police quarters, a market and a court. The report said Action Aid had completed 150 out of 300 shelters in Kambia District in the northwest while Catholic Relief Services (CRS) had finished a DFID-sponsored housing-reconstruction project in Koya, a chiefdom in the east of the country. It said about 6,400 people were occupying the 400 constructed houses. OCHA added that CARE, through its Displaced Basic Needs project, would start distributing non-food items to some 3,000 family heads (26,883 people) in six chiefdoms in the northeastern district of Koinadugu. In Tonkolili, 6,031 out of 9,285 family heads have received such packages. The report said UNICEF in collaboration with Helen Keller International was supporting the health ministry to introduce Vitamin A supplementation into the routine primary health care system in 2003. The ministry and UNICEF were also working on other long-term interventions, such as the promotion, production and consumption of foods rich in vitamin A. Meanwhile OCHA also reported that there was still concern over continuing fighting in Liberia. "Arms re-supplies are believed to have arrived in Liberia over the last few weeks with a significant delivery made by sea. The instability along the Guinean border with Liberia is also a major cause of concern as insurgents from Liberia keep trickling in to Guinea," it said.