Cash transfers for improved nutrition of people living with HIV in Sierra Leone
How efforts by UN agencies in partnership with the private sector and government are making a difference in the nutrition and lives of people living with HIV.
Written by Victoria Kamara/WFP Sierra Leone
Aminata Mansaray lost her husband to HIV/AIDS due to late diagnoses and lack of treatment. Many people in her community — Grafton village, Western Area Rural near Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown — would expect her to lose hope and live in despair. That’s not her way. The 42-year-old mother of two has a will to survive and support her children.
She runs a tie and dye clothing business that helps pay for her eldest son’s education at a tertiary institution in Sierra Leone. The income is also boosted by cash transfers she receives from the United Nation World Food Programme (WFP).
Working in partnership with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), WFP ensures that food and nutrition support is integrated into national HIV strategies and provided to people living with HIV in Sierra Leone. This assistance is increasingly provided through cash transfers.
“With the money I receive, I am able to sustain my family, buy nutritious food needed for my health and live happy,” says Aminata. “There is hope and through the cash assistance from WFP we are making a living.”
An estimated 61,000 people are living with HIV in Sierra Leone. Prevalence of HIV varies by location, however it is particularly high in Western Area Rural (3.4%) and Western Area Urban (2.5%), according to the Sierra Leone HIV National Strategic Plan :2016–2020.
WFP has supported people living with HIV/AIDS for several years. In 2017 alone, it provided in-kind assistance for up to 44,000 people focusing on those in the most food insecure districts in the West African country.
In 2018, WFP has modified its interventions to focus on using cash transfers with the provision of monthly stipends averaging US$50 per distribution over a six-month period. The aim is to improve access to a variety of food items and diversified diets, enabling families to meet their basic needs. The intervention is provided via SCOPE, a beneficiary registration system, that is used to register, verify and process all cash transfers, ensuring accountability and reliability.
The initial feedback from persons being served has been largely positive.
Alusine Turay aged 34 years, a husband, father and brother to a family of six, believes cash transfers have enabled him to provide for his family needs and ensure that his business grows, which has improved their standard of living and brought a real change to his life.
“If this programme continues many people’s lives will change and become meaningful, it will give additional value to people,” says Alusine who is a petty trader.
For WFP and the UN Team in Sierra Leone, improving the nutrition status and food security of people living with and affected by HIV is also a way of leveraging work towards several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These include poverty alleviation, health, zero hunger, education and gender equality, which will be attained through partnerships and more integrated approaches at all levels — from communities and families to national Government.
“What we want is a Sierra Leone and a World where no one goes to sleep hungry, people are healthy and can take care of themselves when they are sick, and there are no inequalities and no poverty,” says Housainou Taal, the WFP Representative and Country Director in Sierra Leone.
WFP is partnering with UNAIDS, Ecobank a partner in charge of cash distribution and non-governmental organisations such as Network of HIV Positives in Sierra Leone (NETHIPS), Voice of Women and Society for Women against Aids in Sierra Leone (SWAASIL), to help persons living with HIV in Sierra Leone.
