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Sierra Leone Food Security Monitoring System Report, February 2022

Countries
Sierra Leone
Sources
Govt. Sierra Leone
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Publication date
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Key findings

This current analysis will be used a reference point to the methodology used and according to the current results (FSMS February 2022), 73% percent of Sierra Leone’s population is food insecure. Among the food insecure, 11% percent of households are severely food insecure, and 62 percent are moderately food insecure.

The Annual National Consumer Price Inflation (year-on-year) for February 2022 stood at 17.59 percent, up by 0.94 percent point from 16.65 percent in January 2022.

Local rice reported a price increase of 17 percent, while import rice reported an increase of 25%. The high increment in the price of local rice may be due to lower-than-normal yields in the last farming season, while the increase in import rice could be influenced by the increase in the global price of oil.

Cassava reported a price increase of 27 percent which is associated to the increase in the price of rice across the country as it’s direct substitute because of it’s increased availability and many processed products that are easily accessible.

Context

According to the 2020 Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA), over 4.7 million people were food insecure of which some 963,000 were severely food insecure. Over half a million people were added to the count of food insecure people since 2015. The 2020 CFSVA showed that the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout contributed to a further deterioration in living conditions and reduced access to basic amenities. It found that 3.3 million people of the food insecure live in rural areas compared to 1.4 million people in urban areas. Data for the 2020 CFSVA was collected during the harvest period when the situation is expected to be better. The 2021 Food Security Monitoring System conducted in August/September also shows a deteriorating trend of food security indicators, the food consumption score, livelihood coping strategies and share of expenditure on food. The FCS for Poor households show significant deterioration when compared to the previous FSMS and CFSVA recording 37 percent of households in poor food consumption score category, indicating poor diversity of food to meet their dietary requirements. The proportion of households using above 75 percent of their expenditure on food also increase tremendously to 74 percent, indicating high level of economic vulnerability during the lean season.

To continue to monitor the precarious food security and vulnerability situation in Sierra Leone, WFP in partnership with Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) conducted the regular Food Security Monitoring System (FSMS) in January/February 2022 to capture the trends during the post-harvest.

The two study provides insight into the levels of seasonal change in vulnerability and provide decision makers with key data to shape the targeting and design of programmes to best address seasonal food insecurity. The FSMS is also a key contributor of data to the Cadre Harmonise exercise commencing in March 2022.

In January 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and other members of the Sierra Leone Food Security Working Group undertook a Food Security Monitoring System (FSMS) exercise. MAF, Stats-SL and WFP coordinated and supervised data collection, the data was analysed jointly by WFP and MAF. The purpose of the FSMS was to assess the status of food insecurity during the post-harvest season. The national FSMS collected food security data from all 16 districts

Objectives

The main objective of the FSMS is to provide timely information about household food security and vulnerability situation in the country twice a year, post-harvest and lean season. Data provide invaluable snapshots at both national and district levels to enable targeted short and long-term programming. The main outcome is to support Sierra Leone’s achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.