Public Health Jobs ,2024-06-27 13:52:33
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• Another major flood event is likely to occur in South Sudan over the second half of 2024, according to government officials, UN agencies, and independent research groups, threatening to deepen an already severe humanitarian crisis. Though piecemeal hydrological data enable only a rough prediction of the floods’ scale and whereabouts, humanitarian actors are planning for a scenaio in which more than three million people are affected and 2.4 million are in need of humanitarian assistance.
• Major flooding is all but certain to trigger widespread displacement and result in excess loss of life. Consecutive years of atypically severe flooding between 2019 and 2022 have had disastrous and long-lasting humanitarian impacts, and signal what an outcome could look like. Critical rates of acute malnutrition are now present in most counties along the Nile, where floods appear most likely to occur, while countrywide tens of thousands of people – including many of the more than 700,000 recently displaced from Sudan – are estimated to be facing catastrophic levels of hunger. Of particular concern are high density displacement sites in Greater Upper Nile, such as those in Bentiu, where the prevalence of acute malnutrition may have already crossed the extremely critical threshold.
• Should major floods materialize, a scale-up of emergency assistance – including healthcare, food, sanitation, and emergency shelter – will be needed to avert excess loss of life. Yet the humanitarian response plan remains less than 20% funded, and recent operational obstacles have disrupted the delivery of humanitarian food assistance. Airdrops, a last resort but high-cost method of delivering aid, may be only way to reach pockets of hard-to-reach populations through the remainder of 2024.
• In addition to emergency aid, longer-term support will also be needed to rebuild livelihoods and enable greater resilience to future flooding. All humanitarian interventions should integrate conflict sensitivity recommendations to mitigate the risk of aid exacerbating tensions between communities over control of land and resources.
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