Attachments
Overview
In 2023, South Sudan endured its worst humanitarian crisis since independence. The effects of insecurity, violence, macroeconomic challenges, the climate crisis, and the Sudan conflict jeopardized development gains, heightened protection risks, and increased food insecurity for millions of South Sudanese families. Consequently, 76 percent of the country’s population needed humanitarian assistance in 2023, representing a 5 percent increase from 2022. Two-thirds of the population grappled with food insecurity, making South Sudan one of the world’s worst food insecurity crises. Humanitarian needs increased amid severe resource constraints, demanding resolute interventions.
WFP provided food assistance to crisis-affected people to meet their food and nutrition needs, including conditional and unconditional food and cash-based transfers. Overall, WFP assisted 5.4 million people with 184,000 metric tons (mt) of food and USD 58 million in cash-based transfers. WFP assisted 3.6 million people under the emergency response, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and new arrivals from Sudan with general food assistance, 1.5 million children aged 6 - 59 months and pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls with specialised nutritious foods to treat and prevent moderate acute malnutrition and 469,000 school-going children with school meals. WFP assisted 494,000 people through asset creation and livelihood activities, including 43,000 smallholder farmers through gender-responsive training on marketing, post-harvest handling, and nutrition. WFP contributed to improved food systems by linking smallholders to homegrown school feeding. WFP purchased 15,000 mt of food from traders and smallholder farmers, injecting USD 8 million into the local economy.
WFP rehabilitated 569 km of roads in Jonglei, Western Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria, Unity and Upper Nile States and 40 km of dykes in Jonglei State. This infrastructure enhanced trade, market integration, and reduced the cost of delivering humanitarian assistance. The completed emergency protective dykes in Fangak County of Jonglei State helped protect the lives and livelihoods of 100,000 people while rehabilitated roads enhanced the flow of humanitarian and commercial supplies between States, including areas bordering Sudan.
Together with other UN agencies, WFP supported anticipatory action and climate services feasibility assessments and reviewed the National Social Protection Policy Framework. WFP also strengthened climate change adaptation and disaster management systems to enhance national institutions’ capacity to anticipate and respond to shocks. These initiatives strengthened the government’s capacity and laid a foundation for future food and nutrition security and build a more resilient and food-secure South Sudan.
The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service enabled a safe humanitarian response, especially in remote areas. The Logistics Cluster offered coordination, information, and logistics services to humanitarian agencies. Through its supply chain services, WFP delivered 154,000 mt of food to various locations. Poor road conditions during the rainy season and insecurity constrained food deliveries in hard-to-reach areas.
WFP contributed to accelerating progress towards zero hunger objectives by strengthening synergies between humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding efforts. The WFP-led Reconciliation Stabilization Rehabilitation Trust Fund project in Jonglei and Warrap States engaged communities in peace dialogues and resilience activities, benefiting 45,000 participants. This fostered food security and stability, with participants appreciating its contributions to shelter, hygiene, and increased milk production, making asset creation activities a tangible peace dividend.
The protracted, multidimensional food insecurity crisis exacerbates pre-existing gender inequalities. This context impacts women's participation in decision-making and public life due to power imbalances, unequal resource distribution, and limited access to information. WFP's proactive gender responsive approach, embedded in its programming and strategic partnerships, yielded impressive results. WFP post-distribution monitoring showed that 99 percent of women, men, boys, and girls reported empowered voices and positive community contributions, demonstrating the efficacy of this approach in promoting gender equality and women's empowerment.
WFP collaborated with UN agencies, nongovernmental organisations, international financial institutions, private sector entities, and the Government to tackle policy and operational challenges, and deliver humanitarian assistance and resilience-building for shock-affected people. WFP strengthened its collaboration with UNICEF to combat malnutrition and enhance government capacities, and with FAO to foster community resilience. WFP also collaborated with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, UNDP, WHO, Nonviolent Peace Force, and Vétérinaires Sans Frontières - Germany to implement the Community Violence Reduction project in Jonglei and Warrap States via the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund. This initiative promoted peace by capitalizing on WFP’s resilience programmes and partners’ peace-building skills. WFP worked with the Ministry of Roads and Bridges to coordinate infrastructure development and flood-mitigation efforts in priority areas. Together with other UN agencies, WFP conducted the Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) capacity assessments for cooperating partners. The development of capacity strengthening plans started and UN agencies planned to support cooperating partners to strengthen their PSEA capacity in 2024. WFP held inclusive community consultations with a range of stakeholders, including representatives of persons with disabilities, to address barriers in accessing services, including in WFP distribution sites. WFP assisted 121,000 people living with disabilities.
South Sudan remained at a crossroads, with swift action needed to quell chronic violence, ramp up humanitarian assistance to those most in need, and advance efforts towards durable peace. The country’s progress towards the sustainable development goals (SDGs) lagged, with persistently high malnutrition levels among children (SDG 2:2), high mortality rates in children (SDG 3) and 2.8 million children remaining out-of-school (SDG 4). Contributing towards SDG target 2.1 on access to food (prevalence of undernourishment), WFP provided food assistance to 4.1 million people, provided nutrition assistance to 1.5 million people under SDG 2.2 (prevalence of malnutrition), assisted 82,000 small scale producers through income generation under SDG 2.4. WFP supported 243 partners through multi-stakeholder platforms under SDG 17.
Severe funding gaps persisted throughout 2023. WFP reduced its target from 7.7 million people to 5.4 million, and provided 70 percent of the food basket to people facing famine-like conditions and 50 percent to people facing emergency food insecurity levels. Further, WFP deprioritized people facing crisis food insecurity levels and scaled down food systems and resilience activities. WFP engaged traditional donors and explored new ones to fundraise for the 2023 funding gaps.