WFP South Sudan Country Brief, September 2022

In Numbers

19,170 mt of food and nutrition assistance distributed
USD 5.73 million in cash-based transfers made
USD 676 million six months (October 2022 to March 2023) net funding requirements
2.2 million people assisted in August 2022

Operational Updates

Economic situation

• Since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, the food basket cost per person per month saw an increase in all markets, reaching 272 percent, 128 percent, 117 percent, and 110 percent in Yida, Kapoeta, Wau and Bunj markets, respectively, as of the last week of September. However, the South Sudanese Pound (SSP) continued to appreciate against the US dollar in August and September. During the last week of September, the average reference exchange rate stood at SSP 624 per USD, a four percent appreciation rate compared to the end of August. The food basket cost in the last week of September remained stable or slightly reduced, compared with the last week of August in most WFP-monitored markets. The availability of commodities from early seasonal harvest and a steady exchange rate contributed to the stability of the food basket cost.

Security updates

• The security situation in South Sudan remained volatile throughout September. Sub-national and localized violence continued in different areas of the country, leading to additional displacements and escalation of ethnic tensions in the Greater Upper Nile region and spilling over to the neighbouring states.

Humanitarian updates

• In August and September, severe floods swept through the Greater Upper Nile region, affecting more than 616,000 people across 22 counties and Abyei. The floods damaged livelihood assets, food crops, and livestock, diminishing the communities’ ability to recover from social and economic shocks. On 9 September, the Government of South Sudan declared flood-affected parts of the country as national disaster areas and appealed to humanitarian organizations to assist.

Support to crisis-affected population

• WFP provided General Food Distributions (GFD) to people facing acute food insecurity, reaching 2.2 million people in August through food and cash-based transfers, including the refugees and IDPs. WFP also provided food and nutrition assistance to vulnerable people at risk of malnutrition, school school-going children and people participating in resilience activities. Overall, WFP assisted 4.6 million people out of the targeted 5.6 million people in 2022 between January and August 2022.

• Owing to funding challenges, WFP had to revise its operational plan in April 2022, reducing the number of targeted food-insecure people by 1.7 million. Thanks to the new contributions received from donors in August 2022, WFP has started reinstating some of these people to the operational plan.
However, available resources will only allow WFP to reach an additional 1.1 million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance for two months.

Safety nets and resilience

• In collaboration with the Ministry of General Education and Instruction, WFP and UNICEF are implementing the Joint Resilience Project (JRP) in Aweil, Juba, Torit, and Yambio. The project assists 56 schools comprising 33,000 students with an integrated support package, which includes training of parent-teacher associations, provision of school materials, back-to-school campaigns, linkage with child protection services, school feeding, nutrition education, drilling and rehabilitation of boreholes, construction of latrines, and the establishment of school gardens. These interventions helped improve school enrolment, attendance, and retention. Between January and June 2022, the assisted schools saw an overall enrolment increase of 1,503 students (1,434 girls, 69 boys), representing a five percent increase from 31,244 students in January to 32,747 students in September.

Nutrition

• WFP supported the South Sudan AIDS Commission to conduct an awareness creation campaign in Juba for 50 people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV). The awareness focused on information about HIV/AIDS, positive living, the importance of food nutrition for PLHIV, and the HIV/AIDS-related stigma.

Logistics operations

• As of 30 September, WFP had delivered 213,448 mt into South Sudan, representing 85 percent of the 2022 requirements.
Insecurity, flooding, torrential rains, and access challenges affected operations. Floods washed roads in the western part of the country and the Northern Bahr el Ghazal, constraining the delivery of food to vulnerable people.

• WFP used innovative approaches to continue delivering food to the affected people. To transport food to Unity State, WFP used a combination of different modes of transport, including transporting it to Adok Port by river using barges, loading it into trucks for transport to Piliniey, and loading it into canoes for final delivery to emergency locations within Unity. This approach helped to minimize the use of the costly air transport.
WFP continued to build dykes and repair damaged sections of the roads along routes that were accessible.

Common services

• The Logistics Cluster facilitated the transport of 373 mt of humanitarian supplies to 21 destinations across the country on behalf of 31 organizations in September. The cluster airlifted 154 mt of health, nutrition, shelter and WASH relief items to Malakal and Old Fangak for the Tonga emergency response.

• In September, UNHAS transported 6,183 passengers to 50 destinations,180 mt of humanitarian light cargo and conducted 12 medical evacuations. By 30 September, UNHAS had supported 180 partners. WFP identified replacement air assets to replace the current fleet of MI-8s following contractual changes. Because of the limited availability, the deployment of replacement aircraft in South Sudan was expected to be delayed by a few weeks and limit UNHAS’ capacity to deliver the required level of humanitarian air services. However, WFP continued to work to reduce the delays to minimize disruptions in its operations.