This was under the auspices of the AFENET – US CDC Cooperative Agreement (CoAg) to support activities in Sierra Leone in order to improve on program coordination and accelerate activity implementation.

The team was composed of technical, administrative, finance and procurement liaisons to support the country team with AFENET policies, guidelines and procedures of operation.

During the two-week visit, the team met with the Health Security and Emergencies Director at the Health Ministry Dr. Mohamed Alex Vandi to discuss AFENET’s role in support of his department, which come out clearly from the tremendous work undertaken by our team in workforce development and surveillance in support of early disease detection and responses.

“The team met with the CDC country team (Deputy director Ms. Chinyere Ekechi, CoAg specialist Mr. Alieya Alie Kargbo) discussed the comparative working relationships of our organizations and the need for CDC to continue supporting AFENET to implement FETP and other programs supported in the country. CDC pointed out the peculiar working terms and conditions for our team, which requires revision of ToRs,” an end of visit report reads in part.

The visiting team held a general staff meeting to orientate country team on AFENET’s policies and procedures particularly on procurement guidelines, staff entitlement of Rest and Recuperation (R&R), financial/activity requisitions and retirement (accountability), mode of operations especially financial flow system and activity implementation strategies. Information and Communication Technology support was also extended to the FETP team.

Dr. Godfrey Kayita headed the AFENET Secretariat team. Members on the team included Mr. Gilbert Kagumya (Administrative liaison), Mr. Harrison Mubiru (Finance Liaison), Steven Kyambadde (Senior Procurement Officer) and Mr. Michael Nkanika (Web Systems and Database Administrator).