Humanitarian Response

Given the dire humanitarian crisis in South Sudan, DFID commissioned research into patternsof displacement in order to guide policy and planning. The feildwork covered the areas mostaffected by the post-2013 conflict; Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity. It did not cover the newareas of conflict (e.g. the Equatorias) which would merit further work. The researchers visitedProtection of Civilians (POC) sites, informal internally displaced person (IDP) settlementsreceiving international or government assistance, and dispersed places hosting displacedpeople which are either not receiving assistance or only assistance from a local community.

Sites were chosen to ensure a mix of factors, including displacement in zones of active orrecent conflict as well as relatively stable areas, and whether IDPs were living among peopleperceived as being on the same side in the conflict or not. In all cases, people were accessedthrough partnerships with organisations with strong links to communities. The findings weretested at a validation workshop held in Juba, and the report was externally reviewed.

This brief provides a context update about the current situation in Northern Bahr el Ghazal –a county in northern South Sudan.

The authors present safety and security challenges identified by communities, authorities and civil society such as food insecurity, gender-based violence, land and border disputes, weak justice systems and a lack of security services to turn to.

They also provide recommendations for how best to address these challenges for all levels of government and communities to consider.

Since December 2013 – only two and a half years after it became an independent country – South Sudan has been mired in a deep political, military, and humanitarian crisis. Heavy fighting erupted on 15 December between members of armed forces in Juba, the capital. Tensions and power struggles within the leadership ranks of the leading political party of South Sudan – the SPLM (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement) – had preceded the fighting. The armed violence quickly spread to other states in South Sudan and has brought human rights violations, death, and destruction to Juba and to Jonglei, Upper Nile, and Unity States.1 Within a few weeks, several thousand South Sudanese were killed. As of mid-June 2014, about 1.5 million South Sudanese are displaced either within South Sudan or as refugees in neighbouring countries; 94,000 South Sudanese are sheltering in ‘Protection of Civilian’ locations protected by the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS); and UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs projects that around 3.8 million South Sudanese need assistance in 2014 – only half of whom are being reached.2 A nationwide food security analysis led by the Government of the Republic of South Sudan (GRSS) in collaboration with development partners in June declared large parts of Unity, Jonglei, and Upper Nile States to be in a humanitarian emergency,3 and the President himself has raised the spectre of famine later in the year.4In response to the crisis, the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) began in early January to facilitate ceasefire talks between the main parties of conflict: the GRSS, led by the SPLM, and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO). Since their onset, the Addis Ababa talks have been delayed several times. The GRSS and the SPLM/A-IO signed agreements on cessation of hostilities in January and again in May; but despite these agreements, the fighting continues and the new round of peace talks has been postponed.

This paper does not explore the background of the crisis. Many other reports have offered varying views of the events that led to the spreading violence in South Sudan. This paper is intended as a brief reflection on the current situation in South Sudan, based on meetings with GRSS, donors, humanitarian agencies, and members of South Sudanese civil society during a two-week mission by SLRC5 members in mid to late June. It outlines a few observations on the current situation; the breakdown of post- conflict mechanisms that were being put in place prior to the outbreak of the current violence in December; the peace process as it currently stands; and the humanitarian response. It concludes with some reflections on the need for better information and analysis, and outlines a short-term research agenda.

Diaspora humanitarianism grows out of transnational connections that link diaspora groups with their families and homelands. This relational and affective dimension enables rapid mobilisation and delivery to hard-to-reach areas.

Remittances to conflict-affected countries surpass official humanitarian aid six times, blurring boundaries between short-term emergency relief and long-term development.

Accountability practices tend to be informal and trust-based, structured around reputation. Overall coordination with formal political or humanitarian systems is usually absent.

This briefing is an output of the Diaspora Humanitarianism in Complex Crises (D-Hum) project, a partnership between the Danish Institute for International Studies, Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi, Rako Research and Communication Centre, and the Rift Valley Institute.

The briefing was written by Mohamed Aden Hassan, Sahra Ahmed Koshin, Peter Albrecht, Mark Bradbury (RVI), Fatima Dahir Mohamed, Abdirahman Edle Ali, Karuti Kanyinga, Nauja Kleist, George Michuki, Ahmed Musa, Jethro Norman and Obadia Okinda, and was originally published by D-Hum.

The effects of climate change are expected to be greatest in the Horn of Africa countries, particularly those, such as South Sudan, whose populations are reliant on rain-fed agricultural production to meet their food and income needs. As one of the least developed countries in the world, South Sudan’s population is dependent on climate sensitive natural resources for their livelihoods, making the country particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. South Sudan’s future economy will be significantly influenced by climate change and the potential for socio-economic losses and damages due to climate change is one of the largest unknowns in the country’s future.

This CSRF briefing paper explores current climate context and trends in South Sudan, peers into the future of climate change and reflects on consequences of it on the economic and climate sensitive sectors in South Sudan. Lastly, the briefing paper suggests responses for policy and practice such as providing climate sensitive aid and supporting the Government of South Sudan to develop AND implement a national strategy for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

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.

In the Horn of Africa, there is a fundamental mismatch between the nation state framework through which bilateral and multilateral actors see the world, and the networked lives of often vulnerable populations in the region. This is most obvious at the margins of these states, where identities are fluid and decades of displacement and mobility have created extensive global networks beyond the control of state actors. Though movement and mobility, and to an extent the pathways used, are not new, the ability of the transnational
to become integrated with everyday life in disparate locations is.
The transformative impact of everyday transnational linkages is particularly acute in politically and economically marginalized borderlands. These areas are historically subject to more extractive forms of government. Given their insecure locations, such areas traditionally have attracted predominantly emergency assistance. In particular, these borderland spaces have become central to refugee operations in the Horn of Africa, with national
governments content for international resources to substitute for their own more proactive engagement.
An unintended consequence of this approach, however, has been to unmoor these territories further from the national sphere. Refugee programming has helped to internationalize them by creating incentives for transnationalism, whether to attend better schools over borders or by creating new migration routes to western countries that offer resettlement. This has created complex transnational resource flows through family and
extended kinship networks, transforming remote border posts into nodes for flows of
people, cash and social capital.
In these contexts, what are often perceived by outsiders as traditional and highly localized orders are actually interacting with the contemporary global economy and multiple cultural influences. The result can be a subversion of the usually unequal relationships between centre and periphery that not only challenges the spatial organization of state power but also the internal ordering of local societies.
If international actors are unaware of these dynamics, they are failing to understand a critical
component of how individuals, families and communities are organizing themselves
and surviving. Whether focused on fostering community resilience, tackling local conflicts
or encouraging economic activity, there is a need to understand better the daily influence of transnational dynamics. There is also a risk of significant negative effects on local populations from interventions designed to reassert the control of the centre or harden state boundaries.
This suggests a need for further research into the role of the aid industry in transnational political economies, and the opportunities and pitfalls of donor engagement in borderlands. Such research requires new or adapted analytical frameworks that can both investigate and describe complex networked systems. This entails, for example, asking questions about how changes in one location can impact on populations thousands of
kilometres away. Such frameworks also need to foreground individual agency in order to move beyond the limited standard accounts of mobility that focus on push and pull factors.

An FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission (CFSAM) visited South Sudan from 15 to 20 December 2019 to estimate the cereal production during 2019 and assess the overall food security situation in the country. The CFSAM reviewed the findings of several Crop Assessment Missions conducted from June to December 2019 at planting and harvest time in different agro-ecological zones of the country.

This Briefing Paper examines how UN peace operations are using casualty data to enhance the implementation of key elements of their mandates, including the protection of civilians (PoC), the promotion and protection of human rights, and conflict prevention, thereby contributing to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.1: ‘Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related deaths rates everywhere’.

It argues that, in the absence of data from state institutions, UN peace operations can be a good alternative source of data in conflicts where they operate for measuring SDG 16 Indicator 16.1.2: ‘Conflict-related deaths per 100,000 population, by sex, age and cause’. The paper assesses the current casualtyrecording efforts of three of the largest UN missions operating in highly volatile contexts: the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). The aim is to obtain a fuller understanding of these missions’ functions—and the gaps in aligning their data collection efforts with the fulfilment of elements of their mandate and the recording of data relevant to SDG Indicator 16.1.2.

The ability to predict and analyze famine has improved sharply in the past fifteen years. However, the political influences on data collection and analysis in famine and extreme food security emergencies continue to limit evidence-based prevention and response. In many emergencies, good quality data are not readily available, which makes it easy to undermine analysis processes and distort findings. In some cases, these processes are even shut down for political reasons. Sometimes governments or armed groups are the party influencing results for political ends. But it can also be agencies, donors, and even local leaders.

This study documents those political influences, synthesizing findings from six different country case studies (five of which have been considered at risk of famine in recent years) including in South Sudan, noting separate influences on data collection and on analysis processes and the way these play out. Famine analysis will never be free of political influences, but this study recommends good practice for better managing political influences.