Humanitarian Situation Monitoring, Upper Nile State, South Sudan, October - December 2020

Introduction

This situation overview reports humanitarian needs across Upper Nile State (UNS) over the reporting period from October to December 2020. In particular, this report highlights humanitarian needs resulting from flooding in Panyikang and Fashoda, ongoing inter-communial violence in Ulang and Luakpiny/Nasir, and a reported increase in refugee returns and internally displaced person (IDP) movement in Manyo. The findings suggest that flooding and inter-communal violence have contributed to population displacement as well as increased WASH, shelter, and education needs in Panyikang and Fashoda, widespread protection concerns in Ulang and Luakpiny/Nasir, and increased food insecurity and WASH needs in Manyo.

To inform humanitarian actors working outside formal settlement sites, REACH has conducted assessments of hard-to-reach areas in South Sudan since December 2015. Data is collected on a monthly basis through interviews with key informants (KIs) with knowledge of a settlement and triangulated with focus group discussions (FGDs). This situation overview uses data to analyse changes in observed humanitarian needs across UNS between October and December 2020.

Methodology

To provide an indicative overview of the situation in hard-to-reach areas of UNS, REACH conducts interviews with KIs who have recently arrived from, recently visited, or receive regular information from a settlement or “Area of Knowledge” (AoK). These interviews were conducted in the Malakal Protection of Civilians (PoC) site and Renk town in UNS throughout the reporting period of October to December 2020. Findings should be considered indicative only of the situation in assessed settlements.

In-depth interviews on humanitarian needs were conducted on a monthly basis using a structured survey tool. After data collection was completed, all data was aggregated at settlement level, and settlements were assigned the modal or most credible response. When no consensus was found for a settlement, that settlement was not included in reporting.

Only counties with interview coverage of at least 5% of all settlements in a given month were included in the analysis. Due to access and operational constraints, the specific settlements assessed within each county each month may vary. In order to reduce the likelihood that variations in data are attributable to coverage differences, over time analyses were only conducted for counties with at least 70% consistent payam3 coverage over the period. Quantitative findings were triangulated with focus group discussions (FGDs) and secondary sources. More details of the methodology can be found in the AoK ToR^[1].

References

1. ^{^} AoK ToR (www.impact-repository.org)