South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Awan Achiek
The government together with the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Tuesday launched climate resilience project to mitigate impact of floods and other disaster risks.
The three-year project funded to a tune of 30 million U.S dollars will benefit more than 140,000 households, including over 98,000 households affected by floods in host communities, 40,000 returnees, and 5,000 refugees.
“The project will also provide seeds, pesticides, fertilizers and other agricultural inputs and tools required to reduce the adverse effects of climate variability and allow for sufficient crops to be harvested,” said a joint statement issued by FAO in Juba.
It noted that the project to be implemented by FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in a hybrid implementation arrangement that gradually builds national capacity for project management, aims to support good agricultural practices, agroforestry, and natural resource management skills among farmers, fishers and pastoralists.
Beth Bechdol, the U.N. FAO Deputy Director-General said the contribution is crucial to boost smallholder farmers’ resilience to increasing climate shocks and to minimize damage to their crops, livestock and source of livelihoods.
“We need to act before extreme events happen, rather than responding to disasters after they occur. Agriculture is particularly vulnerable to these climate shocks, and where 90 percent of the population are relying on farming, herding and fishing for their livelihoods, investing in safeguarding crops, livestock and inputs is of utmost importance,” said Bechdol.
South Sudan has suffered from climate change shocks with excessive flooding for four consecutive years that destroyed livelihoods and increased food insecurity.
The next flooding is predicted to peak in September 2024 and could impact between 600,000 and 3.3 million people.
