Evaluation of FAO’s contribution to the Smallholder Commercialisation Programme and to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme in Sierra Leone
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The Smallholder Commercialization Program (SCP) in Sierra Leone aims to empower rural communities to increase their food security and income on a sustainable basis. The evaluation covered FAO’s contribution to the SCP between 2012 and 2018. FAO’s contribution focused on intensifying production through the implementation of farmer field schools (FFSs), improving commercialisation by supporting the agricultural business centres (ABCs) and enhancing technical capacity of district agricultural offices and the SCP/Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP) Programme Management Unit at central level.
The FFS approach was successful in transferring knowledge to farmers and national ownership of the approach is strong. Whilst the ABCs model is highly relevant to the Sierra Leone context and has proven to be effective, support is still required in order for it to become sustainable. In particular, there is a need to further strengthen their governance structure and marketing and business approach, and to increase their access to financial services.
The model of combined support to ABCs, FFSs and farmer-based organisations (FBOs) has been recognized as effective for delivering extension services and supporting smallholder commercialisation in Sierra Leone and adopted by other development partners.