South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Awan Achiek
At least 7.1 million people, about 56.3 percent of South Sudan’s population are projected to face acute food insecurity next year, according to a joint report released by the government and UN agencies on Monday.
According to the latest Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC) report released in Juba, an estimated 5.78 million people will likely face worse acute food shortages (IPC3) in the next four months.
“The new analysis points to a reduction of about 600,000 people in next year’s lean season of April to July 2024. This is worth noting,” said Josephine Joseph Lagu, the minister of agriculture and food security during the launch of the report in Juba.
The 2022 IPC report projected 7.76 million South Sudanese at risk of severe acute food insecurity between the same periods in 2023.
It said most of food insecure states between Decembers to March 2024, where more than 50 percent of their populations are likely to face crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse acute food insecurity are Unity state, Jonglei, Upper Nile and Northern Bahr El Ghazal.
Mary-Ellen McGroarty, country director of the World Food Program (WFP) noted that food insecurity and malnutrition burdens remain at staggering levels, despite the reduction in the number of people facing acute food insecurity next year.
She stressed the need to prioritize populations living with the most severe levels of food insecurity and malnutrition in the country.
Felix Dzvurumi, the deputy country representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in South Sudan, said they remain ready to support the farming households in the country to ensure that they can feed themselves.
“We will continue to advocate for the development of infrastructure that will support the agriculture sector and ensure that farmers, have the inputs they need for farming, and can easily access markets to sell their produce and buy other foods to diversify their diets,” Dzvurumi said.
He added that they will also support capacity building of national and subnational institutions that support the agriculture sector in order to improve food security.
