Location: South Sudan

JUBA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will suspend food assistance for more than 100,000 displaced people in parts of South Sudan for three months starting in October as part of a prioritization exercise driven by funding shortages this year

While generous contributions from donors have enabled the U.N. World Food Programme to reach millions in need with lifesaving assistance, many vulnerable people living in crisis areas continue to suffer from the highest levels of hunger and cannot survive without sustained food assistance.

Starting in October, 106,000 people displaced in camps in Wau, Juba and Bor South will not receive monthly food rations for the next three months and until the new year, when the U.N. World Food Programme will resume its monthly food assistance for internally displaced people in those camps from January to September 2022.

“Drastic times call for drastic measures. We are forced to take these painful decisions and stretch our limited resources to meet the critical needs of people who were on the brink of starvation and now risk slipping back into catastrophe if their access to food diminishes,” said Matthew Hollingworth, Representative and Country Director of U.N. World Food Programme in South Sudan.

“If funding levels continue to drop, we may have no choice but to make further cuts as the needs of vulnerable communities continue to outpace available resources,” said Hollingworth. For the next four months, U.N. World Food Programme requires an additional $154 million to provide food assistance in sufficient quantities.

The three-month suspension is part of a broader reduction in food assistance that the U.N. World Food Programme announced in April across all camps. It affects 700,000 refugees and internally displaced people who now receive half the caloric contents of a U.N. World Food Programme food ration. A full ration provides 2,100 kilocalories per person and includes cereals, beans, vegetable oil and salt. Prior to implementing the cuts, U.N. World Food Programme and partners ran a campaign to prepare affected communities.

The U.N. World Food Programme is prioritizing its emergency, lifesaving food assistance in 10 hard-to-reach counties where people are in emergency or catastrophic levels of hunger including Pibor, Akobo, Tonj North, Tonj South, Tonj East, Aweil South, Bor South, Twic East, Duk and Ayod.

Mothers and children between six months and two years of age who live in camps will continue to receive nutrition assistance for the prevention and treatment of malnutrition.

Food insecurity in South Sudan has increased in the last few years and currently affects more than 60 percent of the country’s population.

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.  We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters, and the impact of climate change.

Follow us on Twitter @WFPUSA, @wfp_southsudan and @wfp_africa

JUBA – As South Sudan marks 10 years of independence, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) reaffirm their strategic partnership to improve the lives of millions of South Sudanese and support their aspirations for a better future.

Years of conflict, displacement and environmental shocks have led to chronic hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and the loss of many lives in the world’s youngest country. The U.N. World Food Programme’s partnership with USAID continues to combat these stressors and helps establish the peace and stability that is key for the success of the nation and its people.

The U.N. World Food Programme’s efforts to mitigate the short-term effects of severe food insecurity includes delivering 661,386,787 pounds of food assistance annually to more than five million people in South Sudan. Food rations and nutritional supplements are provided for the treatment and prevention of malnutrition.

While emergency food assistance is instrumental to turn the tide on hunger, eliminating the root-cause of famine requires longer term and more complex interventions: strengthening education, nutrition, livelihood resilience, and economic empowerment.

“To help vulnerable people thrive, the U.N. World Food Programme goes beyond emergency food assistance,” said Matthew Hollingworth, Representative and Country Director of the U.N. World Food Programme in South Sudan. “We are expanding our livelihoods activities to enable families to increase their income, bring communities up to speed on the latest agronomical practices, build people’s resilience to climatic shocks, and to enable food production at scale for a more food secure South Sudan. The U.N. World Food Programme counts on the steady support of our donors to help us sustain the momentum we have built so far.”

The U.N. World Food Programme’s school meals program, which benefits more than half a million school children across all 10 states, is an investment in the future. This initiative feeds South Sudan’s young children with the aim of helping them to grow up to become self-reliant in a peaceful and more hopeful future.

The U.N. World Food Programme’s livelihoods program continues to be a great success, benefiting more than 730,000 people by allowing them to enhance their food production, store their crops more efficiently and gain business expertise when selling surplus in local markets. Maintaining and growing these programs requires the fortitude of generous donors to continue helping the farmers of South Sudan, especially as the lean season peaks this month in July and August.

Coupled with continued assistance, humanitarian interventions that create economic opportunities, such as those delivered by the U.N. World Food Programme and its partner USAID, will enable the South Sudanese people to build these pillars of long-term peace and prosperity.

“USAID deeply values its strong partnership with the U.N. World Food Programme in South Sudan and the vital assistance that partnership has been able to bring to millions of South Sudanese people over the last decade,” said McDonald Homer, USAID/South Sudan Acting Mission Director McDonald Homer.

The United States has provided the U.N. World Food Programme with over $3.1 billion in humanitarian funds since South Sudan was founded in 2011.

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.  We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

Follow us on Twitter @WFPUSA, @wfp_media, @wfp_southsudan and @wfp_africa

JUBA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes contributions totaling $345 million from the United States through USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance to support U.N. World Food Programme food assistance in South Sudan, where rising food insecurity has pushed 60 percent of the population into hunger and poverty.

The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) assessment this year warns that 7.24 million people will face severe acute hunger at the height of the lean season in July, while 1.4 million children will be acutely malnourished. Unprecedented floods, the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of the poorest people and increased conflict over the last two years have taken their toll on what is the world’s youngest country.

The contributions provide relief to extremely vulnerable families living in emergency or catastrophic levels of hunger and in dire need of immediate food and nutrition assistance. The U.N. World Food Programme will also utilize the U.S. funding to scale up its livelihoods and resilience-building activities, enabling the South Sudanese people to build their own future.

“This funding from our biggest donor, USAID, comes at a very critical time when funding is scarce and needs are enormous,” said Matthew Hollingworth, Representative and Country Director of U.N. World Food Programme in South Sudan.

“WFP relies on predictable funding, which enables us to plan ahead to prevent the kind of alarming conditions that precede famine by covering the pressing needs of the most food-insecure communities. These funds will also help the U.N. World Food Programme to pre-position food stocks for the lean season when humanitarian access is more challenging,” he added.

In the May to November rainy season, more than half the roads in South Sudan are inaccessible for over six months, making land transport impossible. The U.N. World Food Programme relies on timely donor funding to pre-position lifesaving food assistance ahead of the rains to reach the most vulnerable in the remotest locations in a timely and cost-efficient manner.

Part of the USAID contributions, confirmed between October 2020 to March 2021, is used to assist the rest of the humanitarian community in South Sudan through the UN Humanitarian Air Service and Logistics Cluster which are managed by the U.N. World Food Programme and enable the transport of aid workers and relief materials across South Sudan.

The U.N. World Food Programme food assistance includes rations such as cereals, grains, oil and salt to ensure a nutritious and diversified diet, as well as specialized nutrition products to support mothers and children. Livelihoods assistance consists of projects such as vegetable gardens, which enable people to grow their own food and generate income by selling excess produce.

Despite generous contributions from donors, funding shortages remain a reality in South Sudan, where humanitarian needs outpace the aid response. The U.N. World Food Programme was forced to cut food rations this April, affecting 700,000 refugees and internally displaced people who now receive 50 percent of a full ration, down from 70 percent.

For the next six months, the U.N. World Food Programme requires $125 million to provide lifesaving food assistance in sufficient quantities to crisis-affected people, including increased rations to refugees and internally displaced people.

The United States Government is a long-standing partner and the largest donor of the U.N. World Food Programme in South Sudan. The U.N. World Food Programme has already begun using the funds from the latest contributions in the past months to ensure the continuity of our operations to reach those who are the furthest behind.

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.  We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters, and the impact of climate change.

Follow us on Twitter @WFPUSA, @wfp_southsudan and wfp_africa

JUBA – United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley today congratulated leaders of Sudan and one of the country’s rebel groups for agreeing to principles to resolve their conflict including that freedom of religion would be guaranteed to all Sudanese in a civil, democratic federal state.

“It’s a great day, a day of peace,” Beasley said. “But peace is not made on paper. Peace is made in the heart. And these leaders have come together around the power of the heart. This spirit is the spirit that will carry forward South Sudan and Sudan to a great future for all the children will be blessed because the leaders this day are peacemakers.”

“At the U.N. World Food Programme, we use food as a weapon of peace. And at the United Nations, we’re grateful for the leadership and the support of everyone here,” he told a meeting of the two parties in the South Sudan capital of Juba.

“I look to the day that we (the U.N. World Food Programme) are no longer here because South Sudan and Sudan are not only feeding their own people, but they are feeding all of Africa and the rest of the world,” Beasley said. “But that can’t happen without the building blocks of peace.”

As part of the principles as the basis for resolving the conflict in Sudan, the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) agreed on the establishment of a civil, democratic federal state in Sudan where freedom of religion would be guaranteed to all Sudanese and the country should have a single professional national army committed to protecting national security.

Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan the Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council of the Republic of Sudan signed the agreement on Sunday in Juba with Abdelaziz Adam al-Hilu, chairman of SPLM-N. The pact was witnessed by South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Beasley.

Beasley and Sudan Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok visited the Nuba Mountains in Sudan in January 2020 on a confidence building mission and were received by SPLM-N leader Al-Hilu. Beasley used his good offices to facilitate the first visit of Sudanese officials to non-government-controlled areas in South Kordofan in more than nine years.

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.  We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

Follow us on Twitter @WFPUSA, @WFPChief and @wfp_Africa