Search

International development has long been dominated by primarily white-led, Global North organizations. These organizations are raising money in the Global North and doing work in the Global South, with the intended benefit to less economically developed communities. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in activism and calls by organizations in both the Global North and South for localization of development, humanitarian aid, and peacebuilding efforts in an attempt to address unequal North-South power dynamics. Since 2006, OneVillage Partners has worked to address multidimensional poverty in Sierra Leone by investing in individuals and communities to help them address their own challenges, providing targeted project facilitation and monetary support for communities to lead their own development, and connecting individuals and leaders with one another across communities to amplify their collective voices and actions for broader impact. Beginning in 2020, OneVillage Partners increased its commitment to “decolonize” their work and more fully shift power to local people in Sierra Leone. This article will provide context on the changing nature of the international development industry and outline steps OneVillage Partners has taken to operationalize the localization narrative, challenges they have encountered, and ideas for the future.

Sierra Leone is a West African country with a population of over 8 million. With more than half of Sierra Leone's population living in rural areas, it is important to understand rural populations' access to and attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine. In November 2021, the rate of vaccination coverage in Sierra Leone was only 7% for one dose and 4% for two doses. Understanding perspectives of health facility staff and patients can help strengthen future vaccine campaigns. We conducted a cross-sectional study, between March 2022 and May 2022, of clinical staff, non-clinical staff, and adult (>18 years) patients/caregivers attending six Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) facilities supported by Partners In Health, four in the Kono district and two in the Western Urban Area district, the capital of Sierra Leone. We assessed the opportunity to vaccinate, vaccine uptake, and intention to vaccinate. Out of the 2015 participants, 11.4% were clinical staff, 18.8% were non-clinical staff, and 69.8% were patients/caregivers. Less than half of the patients/caregivers had the opportunity to be vaccinated (42%), and 22% of patients/caregivers were fully vaccinated. Among the unvaccinated population, 44% would refuse a vaccine if offered to them at no cost. Lack of access to COVID-19 vaccines and to official education messaging, especially for patients and caregivers, is still an underlying problem in Sierra Leone for vaccine uptake, rather than a lack of willingness to be vaccinated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• National prevalence of viral hepatitis in Sierra Leone is still unknown. • Among almost 30,000 blood donors from five blood banks across the country, HBV and HCV prevalence was overall 10.8% and 1.2% respectively. • Over 80% of donations were family replacement. • Infection was strongly associated with being a first-time donor. • Blood donations continued uninterrupted throughout the Ebola outbreak. In Sierra Leone, very little data are available on hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevalence. Blood donor screening permits estimation of the prevalence of transfusion transmissible infections in a general open population. We analyzed blood donor data in Sierra Leone to estimate national viral hepatitis prevalence and identify risk factors for hepatitis infection among the donor population. We conducted a retrospective data analysis in five government hospitals. We collected HBV and HCV screening results, donor demographics, and donation type (family replacement or voluntary donor; first-time or repeat). Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to determine associations between infections and socio-demographic factors. The number of donors screened was 29,713. The overall prevalence was: 10.8% (3200) for HBV and 1.2% (357) for HCV. HBV infection was most strongly associated with male sex (p : <0.0001) and younger age (p : <0.0004 for the 22–27 age group). Both HBV and HCV infection were higher in certain locations. Our findings stress the presence of viral hepatitis infection throughout the country and the need to invest in safe blood services, vaccination and treatment of viral hepatitis at the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]