Attachments
IOM Vision
IOM, working with partners, key stakeholders and communities, will continue to support people in vulnerable situations across South Sudan with essential life-saving assistance, while creating conducive environments for sustainable returns and recovery. IOM will adopt a community-driven approach to all programming, to facilitate transformative changes that address vulnerability and risks. Addressing these challenges means not only making a positive and lasting impact on the lives of South Sudanese affected by crises but also supporting the government in fulfilling the promises of the Revitalized Peace Agreement, creating a base of support for its continued efforts to address potential drivers for future crises.
Context analysis
South Sudan continues to be struck by social and political instability due to violence and a series of interconnected shocks, including conflict, persistent and unprecedented flooding, and inflation. This context increases internal and cross-border displacement, further straining scarce resources, livelihoods, and access to basic services. In addition, it can increase protection risks, particularly for women and girls and other vulnerable groups, such as persons with disabilities faced with discrimination and marginalization, rooted in gendered social and cultural norms. Insecurity, fueled by sub-national intercommunal violence, crime and wide-scale impunity, will continue to hamper the country's roadmap to peace. In 2024, challenges associated with humanitarian access are expected to persist across South Sudan. Communal and intercommunal violence in South Sudan is underpinned by harmful cultural practices and patriarchal constructions of masculinity where decades of conflict at various levels have contributed to, and feed off of, militarized masculinities. These are also root-causes to gender-based violence (GBV), where, for example, through traditions of bride wealth, women are seen as property and as a source of wealth that have limited agency in economic, political and cultural aspects of life, often denied resources, education and opportunities. According to the latest GBV prevalence survey (UNFPA 2023), intimate partner violence for married women (aged 15 to 49) is on the rise (49.6%, physical and/or sexual) and substantial proportions of women (aged 15-64) in South Sudan experience GBV either in form of physical (34.0%) or sexual (13.5%) violence in their lifetime.
With critical elements and benchmarks of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) yet to be addressed, including the reform of the security sector, and constitutional and electoral reforms, tensions are likely to be exacerbated ahead of elections set for 2024, which may lead to national and sub-national violence with severe consequences for the population and further prevent the timely and efficient delivery of humanitarian assistance. Sub-national violence, including clashes with armed groups which are non-signatories to the revitalized peace agreement, will likely lead to further disruption of humanitarian activities and additional displacement of people. Humanitarian activities will likely be negatively affected by sub-national violence, demands from marginalized youth groups, bureaucratic impediments, and illegal checkpoints manned by armed elements that impose fees along major supply routes (roads and rivers).
The outbreak of fighting in Sudan on 15 April 2023 resulted in an influx of people fleeing the country, with more than 423,000 individuals, 83 per cent of whom are South Sudanese nationals, crossing border entry points along the Sudan-South Sudan border, as of December 2023 (IOM-UNHCR-RRC joint dashboard 2023). These exhausted and resource-deprived individuals seek support from IOM and other humanitarian actors for various life-saving services across all areas of arrival, including transport assistance, multi-purpose cash assistance, shelter/non-food items (S-NFI), protection and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and lifesaving healthcare services.
South Sudan remains among the five countries in the world that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change with the most limited ability to respond, as evidenced by communities devastated, destroyed, and displaced by large-scale flooding across the country. It has experienced four consecutive years of flooding, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and inundating two-thirds of the country. Although rainfall during the 2023 season has been below average, some parts of the country are still experiencing flooding. This was particularly damaging in July and August, the core of the rainy season, as it significantly impacts crop production.
Climate change and changing weather patterns also impact cattle migration routes, timing and end destinations. While pastoralists and agriculturalists have traditional mechanisms for negotiating peaceful migration, a number of stressors and shocks lead to a collapse of these systems. Cattle herders are increasingly armed, and co-opted by military and political elites to disrupt local communities for political gains leading to widespread violence and subsequent displacement and prevents sustainable returns.
The high sea surface temperature is expected to result in increased rainfalls across East Africa, including the Lake Victoria basin, which is the main source of flooding in South Sudan. This could lead to even worse flooding from mid-2024.