USAID/OTI Sierra Leone Program Description
FY2001 Budget - $1,705,580 *
The Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) has been implementing activities to promote peace in Sierra Leone since 1998.
Components of the 2002 country program include:
- Youth Reintegration Training and Education for Peace (YRTEP) Program: A two-year, nationwide, non-formal education initiative for 40,000 ex-combatant and non-combatant young adults, combining reintegration orientation and counseling, life-skills training, vocational counseling, agriculture skills development, civic education, and functional literacy training. This program focuses simultaneously on reintegration of war-torn communities and remedial education for youth by-passed by schooling for nearly 10 years. The program has expanded to include a second track called Education for Nation-Building, an adult non-formal education initiative for public and private sector leaders, nationwide.
- "Conflict" Diamonds: Assistance to the Government of Sierra Leone for development of a new diamond policy and operations, to address issues of "conflict" diamonds.
- Media: Support to a multi-donor media and communications program of Common Ground Productions. OTI's portion focuses on communications support for demobilization, reconciliation, and reintegration, and to media and distance learning support for OTI's non-formal education program.
- Elections: support to provide elections-related assistance for national, parliamentary, local, and paramount chief elections scheduled to be held in early 2002.
OTI's international implementing partners in Sierra Leone are World Vision, Management Systems International (MSI), Search for Common Ground (SCG), National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), and the Christian Children's Fund (CCF).
OTI plans to exit Sierra Leone in March 2002 handing off activities to the USAID Mission in Conakry, Guinea.
* Includes 764,975 USD of committed funds from FY2001 to be used in FY2002.
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