Building Resilience in South Sudan

South Sudan is a country marked by war and conflict. Civil war has raged in the country since 2013, causing a humanitarian crisis with high numbers of IDPs and refugees: more than 1/3rd of the population is currently displaced. Despite a ceasefire in 2018, conflict and especially intercommunal violence continues. Political instability and repeated violent conflicts have heavily impacted the countries’ socio-economic development and basic service provision.

Covid-19 has exacerbated these vulnerabilities, disrupting aid provision and services such as healthcare and education. Education levels are extremely low. 2.2 million children are estimated to be out of school, resulting in high illiteracy levels. Livelihood opportunities are limited. Furthermore, food insecurity is deepening in the country as agricultural production and livestock rearing is impacted by the shocks from conflict and climate change. This coupled with the rising costs of living means already high poverty rates will rise even further: more than 80% of the population currently lives below the poverty line.

The project

The project focuses on the regions of Juba, Rumbek and Pibor, the worst affected in South Sudan. It builds resilience by strengthening education, peacebuilding livelihoods through a triple nexus approach, fighting for peace and equality in the regions.

Regarding education, Oxfam ensures that adults and children can complete their primary education through an accelerated learning program which can lead to secondary education or livelihood activities. We additionally build the resilience of education systems to shocks. We develop teacher’s capacities to work in crisis settings and developing stakeholder’s agency in influencing policy and decision making on education. In times of crisis, girls are the first lose out on education, we therefore adopt a gender sensitive approach throughout the project, ensuring girls remain in school and encouraging gender equality.

Oxfam Denmark promotes inclusive peacebuilding in communities, providing training to increase local capacities in combatting conflict and violence. In addition, we improve livelihood resilience in the face of climate change, developing community economic activities and structures such as village savings and loans associations. In addition, we provide skills development, training and start up grants to encourage the diversification of income generating activities.

Resilience building is essential to combat the impacts of conflict, climate change and poverty. By improving education, livelihoods and peacebuilding structures, we strive to build a better future for South Sudan.

This project is supported by Sida with 90,000,000 SEK.

Country: South Sudan

Read about the other Sida-supported project here.