Community Approaches to Epidemic Management in South Sudan: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic

This briefing summarizes findings from the Rift Valley Institute’s (RVI) research project ‘Community Approaches to Epidemic Management in South Sudan’ (CAEMSS), which started in August 2020.1 The project, which began in response to the global coronavirus pandemic, was designed to document how communities across South Sudan have created systems and structures to control the spread of epidemics and infectious diseases in the country. The briefing presents a number of key findings, and makes several policy recommendations, that are explored in greater detail in the project’s final summary report.2 Research for the project was conducted by a team drawn from an extensive network of RVI-trained researchers.3 Across the entire span of the project, the team conducted 114 in-depth interviews in the Yei, Juba, Wau, Malakal, Aweil West and Rubkona areas, both in-person and remotely, via telephone.4 Interviewees included midwives and traditional birth attendants, male and female nurses, herbal experts, traditional healers, pharmacists, chiefs and community elders, elderly women, and local public health workers. The research also included an analysis of over 430 files and documents from the South Sudan National Archives in Juba (a close RVI partner), the Sudan Open Archives and academic databases.The health and wellbeing of the team and our interviewees was the priority throughout the project.