Humanitarian Response

The crisis in South Sudan calls for a critical reflection on past and forthcoming aidpractices in the country, and on the assumptions and ambitions that underpin them.

On the whole, donor engagement in South Sudan has been based on a flawedsituational framing, informing a dominant theory of change that disregarded key eliteinterests, misjudged the main conflict driver, promoted a culture of appeasement,and obscured symptoms of a deeply rooted crisis of governance. As this crisispushed itself to the fore in mid-December 2013, the old narrative of development andpartnership has become untenable. Donors should prepare and plan for working inan environment where armed conflict is cyclical and where periods of relative calmoffer limited options for longer-term development schemes or sustainable reform,narrowing the scope for constructive engagement and enhancing the risks involved.

Since the Second Sudanese Civil War in 1983, South Sudan has seen significant levels of displacement driven by conflict, resource stress, climate shocks, and disease. Movement, already an endemic feature of life in South Sudan, has enabled many South Sudanese households or household members to escape or mitigate years of shocks, but those deciding to move have often faced competing needs, physical risks, and constraints on movement. In order to better understand how both displacement routes and displacing households’ decision-making regarding movement has evolved over the past 35 years, REACH conducted research, consisting of secondary data review and quantitative and qualitative analysis, on long-term population movements trends in South Sudan between 1983-2019, to help humanitarians improve their ability to plan for early response in areas likely to receive displacement.

Since December 2013, South Sudan has once again been embroiled in wide-scale internal conflict, resulting in the internal displacement of 1.3 million people, with an additional 450,000 seeking refuge in neighbouring countries. The fighting and displacement has led to significantly increased requirements for humanitarian assistance, and a significantly scaled-up response, with some 3.8 million people in need, only 2.7 million of whom have been reached with some proportion of what they require (OCHA, 2014). Given the shortfalls in aid and the constraints – both physical and political – in accessing affected populations, there is widespread fear that the situation will deteriorate further before it improves. Humanitarian agencies have been trying to scale up operations over the past eight months, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future.

In this report which also refers to South Sudan the authors present some of the findings of their four year, global research project into the state of humanitarian journalism around the world. They ask,

Which news organisations regularly report on humanitarian affairs? How are they funded, and what ethical problems or professional dilemmas does this create for journalists covering humanitarian affairs?
When natural disasters and violent conflicts are reported, what kinds of journalistic coverage do they receive? Do news outlets differ from one another, and if so, how?
How interested are news audiences in journalism about humanitarian affairs? How well does existing coverage serve their needs, and the needs of those involved in international aid? Which significant ‘gaps’ are there in news provision?
What effects does news coverage have on public attitudes towards international aid?

In protracted crises in which formal governance structures are weak to nonexistent, people depend
heavily on local systems—both social and economic—to get by, often more than they depend on external
aid. Communities themselves are often the first responders in a crisis, reacting long before the arrival of
humanitarian actors. Research on resilience across a range of contexts demonstrates the importance of social
connections, particularly in times of crisis, in enabling populations to manage shocks and stresses.
Social connectedness manifests in many forms: Communities may rely on their immediate neighbors,
extended family or clan chieftains for food, access to economic opportunities, and psychosocial support, or
to negotiate safe passage when fleeing from a conflict or when later returning to their communities of origin.
It is thus critical that aid actors understand how social connections and external assistance interact to better
help conflict-affected populations cope and recover.
However, social connectedness is not always a source of household resilience. Social connectedness is
inherently linked to social hierarchies and power dynamics. “Connectedness” for some households may imply
marginalization or exclusion for others. By considering social connectedness throughout program cycles,
including in design, implementation, and evaluation phases, aid actors can more holistically understand bases
of household vulnerability as well as sources of resilience during crises. These nuanced insights can be used
to ensure that formal assistance reaches households in most need, including ones that may be excluded from
local support systems, to better achieve recovery and resilience outcomes. Equally, by understanding social
connectedness, aid actors may be able to strengthen, or at the very least not undermine local support systems.
This report is the last in a series from the Currency of Connections research initiative between Mercy Corps
and the Feinstein International Center at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, at Tufts
University with support from the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). The series is based on
mixed methods research conducted among resident, internally displaced, and refugee communities in South
Sudan and Uganda. This report employs a sequential exploratory mixed method design to:
1 Investigate the ways in which households rely on their social connections in the context of protracted
conflict and instability, highlighting the ways in which external interventions influence these local systems
of coping and support;
2 Explore the linkages between households’ social connectedness and resilience by constructing and testing
a contextualized quantitative measure of social connectedness.

This report explores the important role chiefs’ courts play in food security and in addressing hunger in South Sudan by reallocating food to vulnerable community members. Their role is particularly important in view of famine and recurrent extreme food insecurity affecting South Sudan. The authors suggest that chief courts potentially offer useful data for famine early warning and responses but also underline that humanitarian actors engaging with chiefs’ courts should do so with a contextually informed and locally nuanced approach.

The report “Trafficking in Persons in South Sudan: Prevalence, Responses and Challenges” analyzes the nature of trafficking in persons in the country, its forms, challenges and the legal gaps in the present legal framework in South Sudan. It provides recommendations that the Technical Taskforce and its partners are set to address. TIP is a heinous crime that exploits human beings. It comes in many forms, including forced labor, forced marriages, sexual exploitation and domestic servitude among others. It’s in this report that the nation gets to know what TIP is in South Sudan. The report highlights that the current TIP provisions in the national legal frameworks are inadequate to provide a deterrence to perpetrators, including aggravating punishments to traffickers themselves. The Government of South Sudan recognizes this as the main challenge to combat TIP in the country.

The report recommends major reforms to its key government institutions and avenues to build a firm foundation to combat TIP in the country, in line with the regional and international frameworks. Currently, South Sudan does not have provisions that are commensurate to the UN Protocol to Prevent, Punish and Suppress Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Conventions against Transnational Organize Crimes and its Protocol

Taking the current presence of South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda as a case-study, this paper explores how different forms of mobility enable them to better cope with the harsh conditions caused by their displacement.
Based on extensive field research, the results of this article show how for South Sudanese refugees, crossing borders can be empowering, although these complex strategies do not fit within the mutually exclusive ‘durable solutions’ proposed by the international refugee regime. Looking through a transnational lens, it is illustrated how different forms of movement enable the refugees to hold on to certain aspects of ‘normal life’, such as
being employed, enacting customs and visiting loved ones, blurring the distinction between voluntary and forced migration.
This results in a deepening of transnational networks as the generally large South Sudanese families find their members dispersed across Ugandan and South Sudanese town centres, villages, refugee settlements and third countries in Africa and elsewhere

This essay looks at healthcare psychosocial support in South Sudan with specific focus on the COVID-19 crisis, postpartum and post abortion family planning, essential care of the newborn and mothers’ knowledge of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. It also looks at factors associated with neonatal sepsis in Tanzania and diabetes mellitus primary care in Uganda.

This rapid review provides a synthesis of evaluations and learning reviews of cash-based programming in South Sudan. There is evidence that in South Sudan the cash-based programming help poor households address food needs and nutrition; and by injecting funds from vouchers, paid work, or grants into the local economy affect local markets. These cash based programmes are changing Sudanese society by affecting traditional kinship relationships and social safety networks; and affecting livelihood strategies as people are switching from subsistence to market-based activities. The review identifies and explains how injecting money into communities in growing volume influences the organisation of Sudanese society, including rebel groups and others who might profit. Additional material in this Helpdesk report is drawn from information published or presented by implementing agencies. This provides some evidence from South Sudan that cash based programmes bring numerous advantages. Both in terms of impact (improved nutrition, increased spending, assets replaced or added, children in school, women taking control over household spending). Also in terms of implementation (speed of delivery, efficiency and reduced transaction costs, the way in which cash transfers are delivered can help empower the target community – and the local community and market that surrounds them). The review prioritised information from 2014-2018 to provide more recent assessments of the impact from cash based programmes. There are few recent formal evaluations of cash transfer programmes although this strategy is mentioned within wider evaluations (WFP portfolio evaluation 2011-2016; Inter Agency Humanitarian Emergency evaluation 2015). However, gender considerations are often lacking from the evaluation literature. Where gender is considered the impact for women is largely assumed to be positive with women gaining purchasing power, making joint decisions about spending, and abandoning some high risk activity (collecting firewood from remote locations). Unfortunately, disaggregated data is not readily available. Although it is likely that activities targeted at the most vulnerable households would include a high proportion of households headed by women, or with vulnerable children under 5 years, or with a disabled family member this report is not able to verify if this was the case.