South Sudan: Inter-Agency Multi-Sector Needs Assessment (MSNA) - Doro, Yusif Batil, Kaya and Gendrassa Refugee Camps, Maban County (December 2017)

This report presents the main findings of the inter-agency Multi-Sector Needs Assessment (MSNA), coordinated by UNHCR and with technical support from REACH, conducted in the four refugee camps of Maban County between 30 October and 18 November 2017.

The aim of this exercise was to inform humanitarian planning and response for UNHCR and partners operating in the refugee camps. For more details on the methodology and findings see the full report below, this section presents a summary of the key findings.

Food Security and Livelihoods

• The food consumption score (FCS) was below the acceptable threshold for 28% of households in the four camps who had a poor score and for 29% with a borderline score.
• The livelihood coping strategies index (CSI) indicates that 56% of households used emergency coping strategies, the most difficult to reverse, during the 30 days preceding data collection (19% of households used stress coping strategies, 11% of households used crisis coping strategies and 13% of households did not adopt coping strategies).

Education

• On average, 26% households reported that boys and girls were not regularly attending school during the assessed period. According to a key informant (KI), lack of teaching materials and uniforms, absence of feeding programs, lack of parental support and bad quality of teaching were the most common reasons for children not attending school.

Protection

• Assessed households reported movements between the refugee camps and the Blue Nile State (Sudan), as well as other locations inside South Sudan.
• Overall, 20% of the households reported that members of their family temporarily returned to Sudan during the last six months, mostly to cultivate crops and visit family or friends.
• 30% of households reported that they had members of their family permanently leaving the camp. They mostly left to Renk (42%) and Ethiopia (20%) in search of livelihoods sources (40%) or education opportunities (25%).
• Reported destinations and routes of refugee community members who temporarily or permanently left the camps to Sudan and other locations inside South Sudan varied according to the camp and the communities.
• The most reported protection concerns were family separation for both women and men (24% and 21%), child labour for boys (29%) and early or forced marriage for girls (42%).

Camp Management

• 70% of households reported knowing of the existence of sectoral committees in the camp, 58% reported being aware of monthly meetings with sectoral committees and camp management, and 57% reported knowing of the existence of regular meetings between sectoral committee members and camp residents.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

• Clean water was reportedly available to almost all refugees living in the four camps with 74% of households reporting spending less than 30 minutes to collect water from the nearest tapstand.
• The majority of respondents reported defecating in family-owned and built latrines (40%), in latrines built by an NGO (25%) or in latrines built by the community (20%). However, defecating in the bushes was still a reported practice in the camps mostly due to a lack of latrines or materials to build them, or because of flooding damaging the infrastructure.
• Previous sanitation and hygiene campaigns promoted in the camps by partners appear to have had a positive impact on the behaviour of camp residents who reported using mostly soap (52%) or ash (31%) to clean their hands.

Shelter

• The most commonly observed type of shelter in the four camps was transitional (33%), followed by tukul (29%) and emergency shelter (20%).
• 60% of households reported that their shelter had been affected by flooding during the last rainy season.

Environment

• Assessed households from the camps reported a high dependence on natural resources around the camps, such as wood, for fuel purposes. Almost all households (97%) reported using wood as main source of fuel for cooking or lighting purposes.
• Fuel was mostly collected by women in the camp (85%). However, men were increasingly engaged in the collection of firewood (an activity generally conducted by women) because of tensions and fear of attacks by refugees and host community members and because of the long distances to the collection points.