Attachments
Introduction
The last quarter (Q4) of 2020 was characterised by increased cross-border movement, internal displacement driven by insecurity, regional food insecurity, and climatic changes affecting access to basic services, such as clean drinking water and solid shelter structures. In addition, the COVID-19 outbreak continued to negatively impact access to basic services, increasing the vulnerability of people living in Central Equatoria State (CES) and their need of humanitarian assistance.
As insufficient regular assessments are conducted across the region due to access and resource constraints, limited accurate information is available to humanitarian actors to inform their response. To inform humanitarian actors, REACH has conducted assessments of hard-to-reach areas in South Sudan since December 2015. Data is collected on a monthly basis through interviews with key informants with knowledge of a settlement. This Situation Overview uses this data to analyse changes in observed humanitarian needs across CES in Q4 of 2020.
Methodology
To provide an indicative overview of the situation in hard-to-reach areas of CES, REACH conducts interviews with key informants (KIs) who have recently arrived from, recently visited, or receive regular information from a settlement or “Area of Knowledge” (AoK). Information for this report was collected from KIs remotely by phone call from Juba covering CES, between October and December 2020.
In-depth interviews on humanitarian needs were conducted on a monthly basis using a structured survey tool. After data collection was completed, all data was aggregated at settlement level, and settlements were assigned the modal or most credible response. When no consensus was found for a settlement, that settlement was not included in reporting. Only counties with interview coverage of at least 5% of all settlements in a given month were included in the analysis.
Due to access and operational constraints, the specific settlements assessed within each County each month may vary. In order to reduce the likelihood that variations in data are attributable to coverage differences, over time analyses were only conducted for counties with at least 70% consistent payam coverage over the reporting period. More details of the methodology can be found in the AoK ToRs.