[{"bbox": [97, 146, 1134, 307], "category": "Text", "text": "Due to low education levels, lack of access to education and poor quality of teaching, the population is very vulnerable to shocks as they don't have the basic skills, knowledge and mindset to cope with them. However, building competences and skills from early childhood to higher education enables individuals to develop their competences for collaboration, problem solving, coping with complexity and risk, and hence building resilience at personal and collective level. Green competences, as they have been described in the EU Green Competence Framework, as well as the UNECE ESD competence framework, focus on these."}, {"bbox": [97, 331, 1134, 572], "category": "Text", "text": "More than 70% of the population live in rural areas, where public service delivery is particularly weak. The local populations lack basic rural infrastructure, such as roads and culverts, access to safe drinking water, adequate health services, quality education and other critical gender-sensitive education factors such as access, retention and drop out of school are low. Access to and retention in education is particularly challenging in rural areas. The Government's decentralisation policy should address these shortcomings at local level. The Ministry of Finance created a Fiscal Decentralisation Unit to enhance budgetary planning, transfers and domestic resource mobilisation at local level. However, local governments don't have adequate personnel and financial resources to perform their evolving role. In fact, personnel resources remain mostly under the control of central Ministries, and budgetary allocations are deviated to more pressing (central) priorities."}, {"bbox": [97, 597, 1134, 705], "category": "Text", "text": "Agricultural extension services that should help to improve food production hardly reach remote areas outside of district capitals. Prevalence of hunger and malnutrition is highest in rural communities. Several donors are active in the area of nutrition (WB, WFP, Ireland, etc.) striving to tackle the full spectrum of nutritional aspects, however needs outrange donor capacity by large."}, {"bbox": [97, 730, 1134, 997], "category": "Text", "text": "The population is particularly vulnerable, because Sierra Leone is one of the countries with the lowest levels of investment in social protection, with only 0.7 per cent of GDP spent on social protection, compared to 3.8 per cent in Africa on average and 13 per cent globally (Source: ILO | Social Protection Platform). The sector is heavily reliant on external support. The main interventions consists of a WB support programme implemented with the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA). The national school feeding programme is considered the most effective social transfer, but reaches only half of school and pre-school children. The government would like to roll out school feeding further, but faces budgetary constraints. School feeding is part of the Education Sector Plan and seeks to provide nutritious meals to all pupils in pre-primary and basic education, prioritising schools in the most food-insecure areas. Home-grown school feeding, which would provide income opportunities for local farmers, is only incipient, but strongly promoted by the government and implementing agencies."}, {"bbox": [97, 1021, 1134, 1182], "category": "Text", "text": "Widespread unsustainable, unregulated and sometimes illegal exploitation of natural resources, especially from agriculture, fisheries, forestry and mining practices and the inability of the local population to sustain their livelihood create a vicious cycle in terms of poverty and vulnerability. In this context, the degradation of the environment has become one of the main drivers of vulnerability in Sierra Leone, and also one of the main causes for food insecurity and natural disasters, such as flooding, wild fires and landslides. Hence, the rural population, particularly those communities living in remote areas, constitute the country's most vulnerable group."}, {"bbox": [97, 1206, 1134, 1288], "category": "Text", "text": "Deforestation is a raging problem in and around national parks and protected areas. Financial benefits from timber exploitation, however, hardly remain in the regions, as only minimal exploitation fees are paid and the population is used as cheap labour. Profits are largely made in the capital or through exports."}, {"bbox": [97, 1312, 1134, 1447], "category": "Text", "text": "Sierra Leone is classified amongst some of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, according to the ND Global Adaptation Index (GAIN). As indicated in the National Adaptation Plan and in the Nationally Determined Contribution, addressing the trend of environmental degradation, deforestation in particular, will improve the country's adaptation and resilience capacity, increasing at the same time its contribution to the reduction of emissions at global level."}, {"bbox": [97, 1471, 1134, 1579], "category": "Text", "text": "Local populations (through their paramount chiefs) had agreed to declare part of their territories as national parcs or protected areas. The government promised social services (road, hospitals, schools, ...) in return, which never arrived. As a consequence, local populations do not feel bound to the original agreements anymore and use available natural resources for their survival with hardly any consideration for environmental consequences."}, {"bbox": [1038, 1681, 1144, 1706], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 6 of 33"}]