Country Description:

Sierra Leone is at an important juncture in terms of consolidating peace and advancing recovery. Significant progress has been made since the declaration of peace in 2002 with the extension of civil authority throughout the country, peaceful parliamentary and presidential elections and the return of over 500,000 displaced persons in the past two years. Although these are encouraging signs, much remains to be done to improve lives and to set the country on the path to sustainable development.

CARE established an office in Sierra Leone in 1961, initially focusing on improving child nutritional status through school feeding programmes and later implementing basic infrastructure projects. More recently, CARE has operated projects in improved agriculture, water and sanitation and preventive health care. Since the onset of the war in 1991, CARE has successfully implemented a range of immediate relief activities and transitional rehabilitation programmes, including agriculture, housing reconstruction, food-for-work, education and skills training, water, sanitation, hygiene education, health and HIV/AIDS.

Today, CARE’s mission is to address the root causes of poverty and suffering through capacity building, advocacy and partnership so that vulnerable, disadvantaged and marginalized people are empowered to participate effectively in achieving livelihood security and realizing their right to live with dignity. Above all, CARE is committed to address the underlying problems of corruption, poor governance and social exclusion, which keeps people in poverty and which, if allowed to fester, could lead to the re-emergence of conflict in the country.