MDA will take care to ensure its activities, including agricultural are fully gender mainstreamed. In a practical sense this means that MDA has the commitment and implements a strategy to ensure that both women?s and men?s concerns and experiences are integral to the ongoing design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of our activities in food security and income generation, and environmental conservation. In this way we aim to benefit women and men benefit equally and ensure that inequality is not perpetuated. A key modality of the gender mainstreaming strategy will be the capacity building of innovative Self Reliance Groups (SRG) within the SGP project, and also of the micro-finance groups, to help poor families achieve a more balanced economic contribution of men and women to their household incomes. Greater economic participation has lead to tangible gains for women in family decision-making. SRGs are women?s groups that provide space for poor and marginalised women to grow in confidence and skills to improve their livelihood base as well as to influence social changes in the society. In Malambay's rural setting, male incomes are not enough to cover more than the most basic subsistence. As such when household incomes are boosted by women?s SRG activities, families are able to accumulate assets and savings as well as diversify their livelihood base. Women?s contribution to family and village development in this way will translate to women?s enhanced voice in family, and in some cases village level decision making. When such is the norm it will translate improvements in the equal participation of men and women, boys and girls in accessing social resources such as education (enhanced gross enrolment and literacy) and health at the grass-roots level. While SRGs contribute to the social and economic empowerment of poor women and their families, they are ultimately expected to become activity groups for influencing local decision-making processes and for implementing activities that will improve local livelihoods including sustainable environmental conservation and other social actions.

The communities will pool and share their data, information, knowledge and experience. MDA Priority-setting strategy ? through species, sites and habitats ? will be designed to ensure that the populations and distributions of all animals are maintained, tackling the most vulnerable species first, in the most appropriate of ways. In outline, such an approach appears deceptively simple; in practice, enormous quantities of high quality, up-to-date, synthesized data are needed to select the species, sites and habitats correctly. This strategy will be extended to livelihood activities. MDA will commence the development of species sited database in order to collect and use this information, relying on the expertise of many different research groups within Sierra Leone and local people partnership. In this way, priority-setting will be consistent and locally accessible. The simple database is a two-way channel, enabling data to flow between the local people who collect the data or update it, those who collate and verify it, and those who make the analyses that turn data into information and targets, in order to influence policy and decision-making ? moving from science to conservation action.

The farmers in the Malambay community and its surroundings area have access to credit for start up and for agricultural inputs from the GEF/MDA at an interest rate of 2% per month. The credit is limited to agricultural programs and a farmer must put up a minimum of 0.1 ha of land as collateral. Since institutional credit facilities are not available for non-agricultural programs, and local money lenders charge very high interest rates and ask for assets as collateral, MDA/SGP funds are created. Farmers who are in need of start-up loans can borrow between SSL250000 to SSL450000 at an interest rate of 2% per month from a GEF/MDA fund during the second round. No asset has to be put up as collateral, but the debit must be cleared within four months. Farmers who participated in the project's marginal land agro-forestry programs will accrue economic benefits. The cultivation of cashew, oil palm-, trees and vegetable crops generate income for their households. Instead of keeping their land fallow, some farmers will switch to practicing agro-forestry. The intervention of the project will result in increased average yields of agricultural crops and reduced deforestation.

Three thousand (3000) cashew trees will be planted in June and July. The seedlings will be supplied by MAFFS (District Agriculture Office in Kambia) funded by the EU cash crops programme for Sierra Leone. The seedlings will be transported from Kambia (18 miles) with a tricycle van to be purchased by the project. This cost effective transportation will also be used for other items namely rice seedlings, trees seedlings. By 2017 the income from cashew seeds and fruit is expected to be SSL144,000,000. Assuming a tree process 4Kg seeds first year, the farm will yield (4KgxSSL12000x3000 = SSL144,000,000). This is expected to double in 2018 and reach a threshold of SSL600,000,000/Year by 2020. As the lifespan of cashew is over 20 years, Malambay will be poised for massive economic boom with less demand for forest products. Planting of the 2400 (40 acres) Oil Palm trees begins in June and goes on to July and August. The Ivorian Variety produces 3 drums of palm oil per area on it?s forth year. By 2017 the oil palm plantation will produce 120 drums of oil pal (SSL122,000,000). By 2020 the plantation will produce 320 drums (SSL340,000,000). With the cashew yield combined income from the cashew nuts and palm oil will be approximately SSL1,000,000,000. The Bathkerot inland valley swamp will be used as a pilot fish farm to be managed by 1man and 1 woman with management inputs from MDA. The clearing of dead woods and grasses has already begun in February. The embankment will be constructed in April and may. By May and June the fish farm will be fully inundated with freshwater. With a total surface area of 500m2 Bathkerot swamp water will be controlled and vegetation around it will be used as a cover for the fish. Natural feeds such as cow dung and waste food will be used to enrich the swamp. During the dry season part of the swamp will be used to grow vegetables. The operation is expected to cost SSL6, 000,000 and it is expected that with the good management planned the swamp will yield 2 tons of fish within and 4 tons annually (SSL48,000,000) assuming a price of SSL12,000 per Kg. The expected profit from a successful fish farm is SSL40, 000,000. This money will be ploughed into the community to promote sustainable fisheries activities and access to microcredit for small enterprises

To encourage people's participation project activities will be scheduled in accordance with the local crop calendar. Benefit sharing among members of a users' group will be guaranteed. Activities which solve the farmers' most pressing problems such as on-farm conservation, water management systems, and income generation activities will be promoted. GEF/MDA funding will be a package plan which contains a sequence of measures geared to address the priority problems identified by farmers, Mid-level technicians in the field will he oriented in project goals from time to time, trained regularly, and he involved in the field-level decision making process. Mechanisms for receiving their feedback regularly will have been developed during project design. Experts will make regular and frequent field visits to observe and to discuss community organization and community development. It is equally important for field-based staff to visit farmers' houses regularly. The Malambay Conservation project demands for local beneficiary or users' involvement as a prerequisite to initiating any activity. The project has identified several conservation farmers and users' groups who will participate in the project activities (the youths, religious leaders, local chiefs and community enforcers) The spirit of decentralization has been practised by inviting village leaders to assess their needs and to plan activities. Some key villagers are involved in implementation. The projects will convince people that conservation activities will yield benefits in the future.