Diffusion of Technologies by the Tikonko Agricultural Extension Centre (TAEC) to Farmers of the Tikonko Chiefdom in Sierra Leone: Impacts, Problems, Proposed Solutions, and an Updated Outlook

Sierra Leone is a west African nation with about two-thirds of its population engaged in agriculture but it cannot feed itself. The country’s agricultural activities were disrupted by a decade-long Civil War that created a great need for improved farming technologies. The Tikonko Agricultural Extension Centre (TAEC) operates in the Tikonko Chiefdom to assist local farmers in improving food production through the fabrication of farm tools to be adopted and used by farmers. This study was conducted to investigate the impacts of the TAEC’s technologies on farmers and their communities in the Tikonko Chiefdom and identify problems and solutions associated with the technologies and their diffusion. The target population included farmers (N = 318) who used TAEC’s technologies and TAEC staff (N = 18) who were involved in the diffusion process. A majority of the farmers adopted and used TAEC’s technologies readily, which they perceived had considerable impact on their farming practices and communities. The relevance of TAEC’s technologies to farmers in Tikonko Chiefdom was also evident. However, the participating farmers and TAEC staff encountered numerous problems. A majority agreed that the diffusion and adoption process could be improved by increasing the farmers’ access to loans. Providing appropriate technologies that can be adopted by low income farmers stands to increase their productivity and self-reliance while improving their nations’ food security. It is undeniable that technologies contributing to food sufficiency and alleviating poverty are needed throughout the developing world; policymakers must be reminded of this condition continually

Community health workers during the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

BACKGROUND: The role of community health workers (CHWs) in the West Africa Ebola outbreak has been highlighted to advocate for increasing numbers of CHWs globally to build resilience, strengthen health systems, and provide emergency response capacity. However, the roles CHWs played, the challenges they faced, and their effectiveness during the outbreak are not well documented. This study assessed the impact of Ebola on community-based maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) services, documented the contribution of CHWs and other community-based actors to the Ebola response, and identified lessons learned to strengthen resilience in future emergencies. METHODS: This mixed methods study was conducted in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, with data collected in four Ebola-affected districts of each country. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders at national, district, and community levels. Quantitative program data were used to assess trends in delivery of community-based MNCH services. RESULTS: There was a sharp decline in MNCH service provision due to weak service delivery, confusion over policy, and the overwhelming nature of the outbreak. However, many CHWs remained active in their communities and were willing to continue providing services. When CHWs received clear directives and were supported, service provision rebounded. Although CHWs faced mistrust and hostility from community members because of their linkages to health facilities, the relationship between CHWs and communities proved resilient over time, and CHWs were more effectively able to carry out Ebola-related activities than outsiders. Traditional birth attendants, community health committees, community leaders, and traditional healers also played important roles, despite a lack of formal engagement or support. Service delivery weaknesses, especially related to supply chain and supervision, limited the effectiveness of community health services before, during, and after the outbreak. CONCLUSIONS: CHWs and other community-level actors played important roles during the Ebola outbreak. However, maintenance of primary care services and the Ebola response were hampered because community actors were engaged late in the response and did not receive sufficient support. In the future, communities should be placed at the forefront of emergency preparedness and response plans and they must be adequately supported to strengthen service delivery

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Developing a Relative Ranking of Social Vulnerability of Governorates of Yemen to Humanitarian Crisis

The social vulnerability of the Yemeni population to humanitarian emergencies is not evenly distributed between the governorates. Some governorates may be more susceptible to the impacts than others, based on the circumstances of the people residing within them. In this paper, we present a methodology for assessing social vulnerability of governorates of Yemen to humanitarian emergencies using a Geographic Information Systems approach. We develop a spatial index of social vulnerability from an initial list of 80 variables that were reduced to 12 factors through Principal Component Analysis. Our findings show that the differences in social vulnerability between governorates are primarily driven by 12 factors, of which education, lack of basic services in health, water and sanitation, electricity, housing quality, poverty, limited livelihood opportunities, and internal and external displacement are the major determinants. The results show that the factors that contribute to social vulnerability are different for each governorate, underpinning the need for context-specific vulnerability reduction approaches. The most vulnerable governorates are characterized by conflicts, armed clashes and violence. The geographic variability in social vulnerability further underpins the need for different mitigation, humanitarian response and recovery actions. The use of Geographic Information Systems approach has contributed to our understanding of the geographies of vulnerability to humanitarian emergencies in Yemen

Using Remote Sensing Data for Earthquake Damage Assessment in Afghanistan: The Role of the International Charter

Afghanistan is located in a zone of high-seismic activity. Given the rugged and mountainous nature of the country and the location of villages, towns and cities, there is propensity for widespread death and destruction due to landslides whenever an earthquake occurs. Use of satellite imagery by humanitarian agencies in Afghanistan in preparation for and response to natural and man-made disasters has been very limited, mostly to International organizations such as the United Nations. Earth Observation Satellites (EOS) due to their vantage position have demonstrated their ability to rapidly provide vital information and services in a disaster situation. EOS has been used in emergency situations where the ground resources are often lacking. The perception amongst humanitarian agencies and civil protection authorities in most developing countries is that the cost of satellite imagery is not cheap. With limited budgets available for purchasing satellite data, they tend to opt for less expensive solutions such as interagency survey teams to assess damages. The rugged and mountainous nature of Afghanistan and the lack of roads in most parts of the country, survey teams are most often hampered, leading to delays in delivery of information from the field to the decision makers. Recent earthquake in the Hindu Kush of the country in April 2004 witnessed the triggering of the International Charter for free delivery of satellite imagery. Image analysis and interpretation of both pre and crisis data did not show observable features of damages. The damage assessment maps were used by the humanitarian community for decision-making. Availability and access to space technology in addressing natural disasters have been the main obstacles facing developing countries particularly those poor countries without their own space programs. This problem has been solved through the introduction of The International Charter for major disasters. However, knowledge about the Charter is not common knowledge in most developing countries; Disaster Management Authorities, the Academic Institutions, humanitarian agencies and the affected communities have very little idea about the availability and access to free satellite imagery. There is need for a massive awareness campaign to educate decision makers about the International Charter and the potentials of using space technology in addressing problems relating to disaster management and the environment. The skills to process satellite imagery and integrate it with other GIS layers are lacking in most developing countries; there is need to embark on a massive capacity building exercise to ensure optimization of the benefits of the technology. The Charter needs to find innovative ways of quickly sending value added information products to disaster management authorities instead of relying on in-country skills in image processing. This paper elaborates on the experiences gained working with images received from the International Charter, and the immense pressures from the humanitarian community for rapid delivery of information

Supplementary appendix 1b of Oliphant NP, Ray N, Curtis A et al. Optimising scale and deployment of community health workers in Sierra Leone: a geospatial analysis. 2022.

Supplementary Appendix 1b contains Supplementary Appendices 1-4, Videos 1, all input datasets, and all output datasets at 100 meter and 1 kilometer resolution for Oliphant NP, Ray N, Curtis A et al. Optimising scale and deployment of community health workers in Sierra Leone: a geospatial analysis. 2022. Files are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Tab "Readme" in the file "Supplementary Appendix 1b Metadata" contains a description of all datasets contained in Supplementary Appendix 1b