South Sudan Situation Report November 2019
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UNICEF SOUTH SUDAN SITUATION REPORT NOVEMBER 2019 Health IRRM Volunteers being trained by UNICEF Staff. Photo: UNICEF South Sudan/Mary Poni South Sudan Humanitarian Situation Report NOVEMBER 2019: SOUTH SUDAN SITREP # 138 SITUATION IN NUMBERS Highlights An estimated 490,000 children are still at risk from the impact of 1.47 million flooding that washed away crops, destroyed homes and Internally displaced persons (IDPs) contaminated water supplies. UNICEF has appealed for US$ 10 (OCHA South Sudan Humanitarian Snapshot, October 2019) million to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of children and women affected by the floods in South Sudan. The 2019 South Sudan Certificate of Primary Education 2.21 million South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring examinations took placed between 25-29 November 2019. UNICEF and partners worked to ensure exams were delivered to 55,193 countries (UNHCR Regional Portal, South Sudan Situation 31 October children (22,350 girls; 32,843 boys) across South Sudan including in 2019) In-Opposition (IO) controlled areas. From January to November, 221,893 children affected by SAM were 6.35 million treated with high quality services, representing 85 per cent of the South Sudanese facing acute food insecurity or annual SAM burden. worse (August 2019 Projection, Integrated Food Security Phase UNICEF’s Response with Partners in 2019 Classification) Cluster for 2019 UNICEF and partners for 2019 Indicators Target Cumulative Cumulative Target Target achieved results (#) results (#) (%) Funding Status Nutrition: # of children aged 6 to 59 months 220,700 221,893 220,700 221,893 100.5% admitted for SAM treatment Health: # of children 6 months-15 years in 475,000 897,961 189.0% humanitarian situations Carryover vaccinated for measles $26,142,535 Funds WASH: # people accessing Received the agreed quantity of 3,000,000 1,718,391 800,000 483,487 60.4% $71,097,235 water for drinking, cooking 2019 Funding and personal hygiene Requirements Child Protection: # of $179.2M children reached with 476,750 293,702 275,000 229,973 83.6% psychosocial support services Funding Gap Education: # of children accessing quality formal or $93,996,980 non-formal early learning, 786,324 711,065 729,000 615,840 84.5% pre-primary, primary or secondary education 1 UNICEF SOUTH SUDAN SITUATION REPORT NOVEMBER 2019 Situation Overview and Humanitarian Needs Since the signing of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) in September 2018 the country has experienced more stability and improved access to previously hard-to-reach locations, yet the operating environment continues to hinder secure, consistent and principled humanitarian access to vulnerable women and children. Bureaucratic impediments and operational interference persist in many parts of the country and inter-communal violence and hostilities continue to inhibit humanitarian programming. Given the onset of the dry season, incidents of inter-communal violence associated with cattle raiding and hostilities between the government and NAS are likely to intensify. Fighting between the SSPDF and NAS continued in Central Equatoria, and in Rumbek. Inter-communal violence forced UNICEF staff to seek shelter during the fighting. Clashes in the Bentiu PoC and outside of Pibor also led to the temporary suspension of humanitarian services affecting over 10,000 children in need. Future access conditions will hinge on developments with the R-ARCSS. If a stable transitional government is formed and a unified armed force and the number and boundaries of states are resolved, the resulting positive security and political climate will improve the delivery of services to children. At the same time, this will also likely lead to increased returns, giving rise to disputes over land and resources, straining already limited service delivery and undermining security. However, there is still uncertainty regarding successful implementation of the peace agreement. Despite the recent extension of the pre-transitional period for 100 days, the unification of forces has stalled and the deadlock over how to resolve the boundaries issue persists. There are also reports of government efforts to recruit armed fighters outside of the unification process and fighters abandoning cantonment sites. If substantive progress is not made soon, there is a high likelihood of localized and limited scale hostilities – particularly in parts of Upper Nile, Western Bahr el Ghazal and the Equatorias – which could also provoke a wider confrontation. This would cause increased displacement and humanitarian needs while hindering access. This potentiality is exacerbated by non-signatory armed groups, who are likely to provoke further clashes and create incentives for discontent groups and/or commanders to defect to their ranks. The humanitarian caseload due to multiple risks remains high. About two thirds of the country’s population remains in need of humanitarian assistance (51% females, 49% males) and this high caseload is likely to continue in 2020, illustrating the multi-faceted nature of the causes of the protracted humanitarian needs in the country. The widespread impact of flooding is still being felt among over 900,000 people, including 490,000 children who reside in most affected states - Greater Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, Jonglei and Greater Equatoria. By the end of November, more than 100,000 flood victims accross South Sudan had received lifesaving assistance from UNICEF since the beginning of the crisis in the end of October 2019. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis conducted in August 2019, an estimated 4.54 million people (39 per cent of the population) are likely to face Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse acute food insecurity in September – December 2019. The prevalence of Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) increased significantly from 13.3 per cent in 2018 to 16.2 per cent in June/July 2019 which is above the 15 per cent emergency threshold. According to the IPC AMN projection analysis, seasonal improvement of acute malnutrition situation is expected during the harvest and post-harvest period due to availability of food stock at household levels, reduced morbidities of childhood illness as well as marginal improvement in infant and young child feeding practices. However, due to high prevalence of acute malnutrition experienced at the peak lean season, improvement will be marginal. A total of 1.3 million are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2020 including close to 292,000 children with SAM. Humanitarian Leadership and Coordination UNICEF is co-leading three Clusters and one Area of Responsibility (AoR) out of a total of 10 clusters and three AoRs currently active in the country. UNICEF co-leads at national level both the Child Protection AoR and the Education Cluster with Save the Children, the Nutrition Cluster with Concern, Action Against Hunger (ACF) and the World Food Program (WFP) and the WASH Cluster with the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). Memorandums of Understanding have been signed between UNICEF and each co-lead agency at country level to guide effective and efficient coordination and ensure clear roles and responsibilities of each party. UNICEF co-led clusters and AoR are all part of the Inter-Cluster Working Group (ICWG) led by OCHA at the national and sub-national levels. 2 UNICEF SOUTH SUDAN SITUATION REPORT NOVEMBER 2019 UNICEF participates in the in-country interagency PSEA Task Force, which functions under the auspices of the Deputy SRSG/Resident Coordinator (RC)/Humanitarian Coordinator (HC), and plays an active role to advocate for better protection of children against SEA. Humanitarian Strategy In 2019, in line with UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) and the inter-agency Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), UNICEF is continuing to strengthen and expand its programmes. UNICEF provides life-saving humanitarian assistance through a timely and effective integrated package of nutrition, health, WASH, child protection and education services delivered through interconnected, complementary responses. To ensure that support has a wide reach, services are delivered through static operations, direct outreach and rapid response modalities. UNICEF’s operations are led by its 13 field offices to enable wide coverage and quality programming across the country. UNICEF’s leadership of the nutrition and WASH clusters and child protection area of responsibility and its co-leadership of the education cluster enable strategic planning, coordinated response, capacity building of partners and advocacy both at the national and state levels. Local partners make up approximately 51 per cent of UNICEF’s partnerships in South Sudan and UNICEF is investing in increasing the localization of aid in South Sudan through capacity building and targeted resource allocation. In 2019, the integrated rapid response mechanism (IRRM) continued to prioritize hard-to-reach communities with urgent, life-saving interventions. WFP, FAO and UNICEF are deploying IRRMs to areas of the country that fit the criteria of extraordinary humanitarian needs in otherwise inaccessible locations. A partnership with WFP on biometric registration, under a Letter of Understanding signed between the two agencies in October 2018, is strengthening data collection, management, follow up, displacement tracking and harmonized reporting. In November 2019, UNICEF and WFP completed two IRRM missions in Pieri and Yuai as part of the flood response programme in Uror county