Humanitarian Response

Survivors of conflict-related sexual violence continue to struggle to access adequate medical and mental health care, according to a new report issued by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan and the UN Human Rights Office.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear, if there was ever any doubt, just how important it is for everyone to have immediate and adequate access to health care,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. “For the survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, it goes beyond treating their physical injuries and psychological trauma. It is quite simply a crucial step in giving them a chance to rebuild their lives and the lives of their families.”

The report, titled “Access to Health for Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in South Sudan,” takes an in-depth look at the adequacy of health care available in Unity and the Central and Western Equatorian regions, which account for 85 percent of conflict-related sexual violence cases documented between January 2018 and January 2020.

It found that funding for public health care in South Sudan has not been prioritized, with just 1.2 percent (USD 14 million) of the national budget allocated for this purpose. This has resulted in international organizations using donor funding to try to fill the gap. Despite the enormous financial investment, the medical response for survivors of sexual violence remains weak.

Rigorous evidence of the cost-effectiveness of investments in disaster preparedness is limited. However, overall the available data points to disaster preparedness leading to clear reductions in both humanitarian costs and losses due to crises (lost lives, assets, livelihoods). While there is general consensus on the importance of preparedness, significant challenges mean it still accounts for a very small proportion of humanitarian aid. There is a need for more research on the impact of disaster preparedness. This review details the evidence from a number of studies of disaster preparedness impact, focusing on cost (and time) effectiveness. The literature reviewed was a mixture of academic papers and development agency reports published in 2013-2018. Key findings include a study examining the economic case for investment in early response and resilience-building in disaster-prone regions of Kenya and Ethiopia concluded that early response was far more cost-effective than late humanitarian response (Fitzgibbon, 2013). Secondly, a cost-benefit analysis of emergency preparedness in relation to drought and flood hazards in Niger (Kellet & Peters, 2014) found that the benefits of investing in preparedness far outweighed the costs. Meanwhile, a 2015 study by the Boston Consulting Group found that all the emergency preparedness investments examined saved significant time and/or costs in the event of an emergency. A 2016 report (Venton, 2016) gives the findings of a Value for Money (VfM) assessment of DFID contingency funding that was provided early in the 2015/2016 Ethiopia drought crisis whereby timely procurement had helped DFID in saving 18%. A 2018 report (DEPP, 2018) gives the findings of a study of the return on investment (ROI) of DFID’s Disaster and Emergency Preparedness Programme (DEPP)’s capacity development investments in Ethiopia and the Philippines that yielded positive returns. Overall, this review found that there was evidence for cost-effectiveness of disaster preparedness, pre-financing and early action, but there remains considerable potential to increase savings. The literature points to the need for greater research into the impact of different disaster preparedness investments – as well as greater allocation of resources for preparedness.

This guidance framework is the output of discussions involving representatives from operational aid agencies and groups in South Sudan. The purpose of this guidance framework is:
1. To facilitate more nuanced understanding of organised violence in South Sudan and address potentially misleading use of catch-all terms (e.g. ‘inter-communal violence’ or ‘cattle raiding’)
2. To facilitate more constructive inter-agency dialogue and planning through a more consistent use of key terms used to describe organised violence in South Sudan
3. To summarise key considerations from a programming (rather than security/legal) perspective in relation to conflict sensitivity, livelihoods/services and protection.

This report investigates how COVID-19 and other shocks have impacted child well-being in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) during 2020 and the potential role of cash transfers and external resources to help children and economies. It reviews the latest social, economic and financial information from a range of global databases and modelling exercises, draws on emerging country-level reporting and carries out projections where recent data are unavailable. Although information remains incomplete and things are quickly evolving, the outlook is alarming.

Possible developments of movement and settlement patterns and humanitarian needs in the next six months after the re-designation of the Protection of Civilians sites.

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.