South Sudan country strategic plan (2023–2025)

CSP approved at EB November 2022 session

Ten years after independence, the world’s youngest country – South Sudan – remains in a precarious position. Conflict, subnational and localized violence, economic crisis, climate shocks and the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic have pushed millions of South Sudanese into dire hunger. Limited infrastructure and access to services reinforce marginalization, particularly for women, girls, youth, older persons and people with disabilities.

In response to these challenges WFP seeks to reduce entrenched inequity and isolation by fostering unified, interconnected and peaceful communities with the goal of leaving no one behind. Guided by the humanitarian–development–peace nexus, this country strategic plan outlines how WFP intends to support the achievement of zero hunger objectives while contributing to peace and climate resilience over the next three years and beyond.

The plan supports the national priorities jointly agreed by the Government and its key partners. It is informed by South Sudan Vision 2040, the revised 2021–2024 national development strategy, the 2022 humanitarian response plan, key sectoral strategies, the 2021 national food systems dialogue, the 2021 common country analysis and the draft 2023–2025 United Nations sustainable development cooperation framework. It incorporates lessons learned from the evaluation of the interim country strategic plan for 2018–2022 and other thematic assessments.

WFP will prioritize five integrated outcomes to ensure that those furthest behind are reached first, with an emphasis on creating incentives for peace and deterring violence:

➢ Outcome 1 relates to saving lives and protecting the livelihoods of crisis-affected populations, including displaced populations and refugees, and leveraging humanitarian activities to contribute to climate resilience and peace.

➢ Outcome 2 focuses on integrated nutrition, health and education services and seeks to enhance access to safety nets to support and safeguard human capital gains.

➢ Outcome 3 seeks to address inequity and isolation by scaling up resilience building activities in hotspots of food insecurity, organized violence and climate shocks.

➢ Outcome 4 describes WFP’s role in establishing pathways towards incremental national ownership and the transfer of programmes to the Government in the long run.

➢ Outcome 5 focuses on providing reliable common services and expertise to humanitarian and development partners so that they can reach people at high risk of vulnerability.

Grounded in the core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and operational independence, the plan follows a context-driven, human rights-based and intersectional approach to bring empowerment and choice to the lives of South Sudanese women, men, boys and girls, including older people and those with disabilities or other special needs. It emphasizes conflict sensitivity, the expansion of principled humanitarian space, protection risk mitigation and accountability to affected populations. Gender equality and women’s empowerment, nutrition, climate change and environmental sustainability will be mainstreamed across WFP interventions.

This country strategic plan is conceived as the first in a series of three plans laying the foundations for an integrated, sequenced and layered approach to WFP operations in South Sudan over the next 13 years. This timeframe will enable WFP to pursue incremental gains in life-saving, resilience, development and peace over multiple years and interrelated programme cycles. The long-term ambition is to reduce the need for humanitarian assistance by promoting self-reliance and resilience and strengthening national capacity and systems.

To do so, WFP will reinforce and expand partnerships with the Government, development partners, international financial institutions, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions and other key actors. Collaboration with other United Nations entities, especially the other Rome-based agencies, remains a top priority.