The West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program in Sierra Leone (WAAP1C-SL) will be organizing a two-day orientation programme for field staff of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security and the Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute at the Rokupr Agricultural Research Center and the Njala Agricultural Research Center respectively.

The two days orientation programme, which will take place from the 11th to 13th of September, will enhance partners' and stakeholders' understanding of the project program design in terms of sub components; clarify partners' roles and responsibilities, rules and procedures for financial management, procurement, monitoring and evaluation, coordination and management of research grants and other implementation modalities; and present an opportunity to the project team to visit project sites and interact with potential beneficiaries and establish clear lines of communication between implementing partners, frontline functionaries and the project coordinating unit.

Key amongst the implementing partners who will participate in the programme will be officers from the WAAPP 1C - SL project team, headquarter and field staff of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security, scientists and researchers from the Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute (SLARI), Rokupr Agricultural Research Center (RARC) and the Njala Agricultural Research Center (NARC).

Sierra Leone became one of the six West African countries in 2011 to participate in the third series of the first phase of the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program as a beneficiary country from the World Bank and Japanese Policy and Human Resource Development (PHRD) grant to the ECOWAS region for the implementation of the Regional Policy of Agriculture for West Africa.

The broad development objective of WAAPP is to generate and accelerate the adoption of improved technologies in participating countries' top agricultural commodity priority as outlined in the ECOWAP. Towards the conclusive stages of the project, it is expected that about two hundred (200) people would have benefited from its implementation, five (5) technologies released by National Centers of Specialization and over 150,000 hectares of land will be under cultivation from improved technologies.