Getting it Right from the Start - Oxfam New Zealand

More documents

Recommendations

Info

esponding to a worst case scenario of 200,000 – 300,000 peopledisplaced or a sudden influx of returns from the north? If we started tosee really serious violence in Unity State or elsewhere, we‟d beseriously stretched.‟ 7‘As South Sudan is prone torecurrent crisis … affectingcritical food and incomesecurity of large segmentsof the population, support isindispensable for improvingpreparedness for, andeffective response to, foodand agricultural threats andemergencies.’Government of South Sudan, SouthSudan Economic DevelopmentPlan.Recommendations• Recognise that there will be significant humanitarian needs, andcontinued need for emergency response, for years to come. Thecapacity of the international community to adequately respond mustbe maintained, and should be resourced via funding that is fast andflexible enough to allow rapid, effective humanitarian response. Thiswill be best achieved through substantial humanitarian fundingchannelled bilaterally to implementing agencies, together with anadequately resourced Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF) for SouthSudan (detailed recommendations regarding the CHF are describedin section nine).• Continue to support international humanitarian response institutions,including OCHA and the clusters (with a focus on strengtheningcoordination capacity at the state level); and strengthen efforts tobuild the emergency preparedness and disaster managementcapacity of government institutions at national, state and local level.This should include training for a range of government actors (suchas county health departments) in contingency planning, as well assupport for local government to develop assessment andcoordination mechanisms so as to enable appropriate, governmentleddisaster response.• Continue to explore innovative mechanisms for enabling faster, moreeffective humanitarian response. In addition to continued support forinter-agency planning, this could include the pre-positioning ofemergency response funds or the signing of contingencyagreements with implementing partners (as some donors havedone); or the identification of sectoral emergency response leads ineach state; or more substantial support for initiatives aimed atdeveloping the response capacity of national NGOs and civil societyorganisations (CSOs).• Provide more substantial support for initiatives aimed atstrengthening the ability of communities to prevent, mitigate andrecover from humanitarian crises. Initiatives should focus onstrengthening existing community structures – for example bysupporting community leaders to develop contingency plans, orsupporting community groups to play a role in raising awarenessregarding natural hazards – and particular attention should be paidto facilitating the participation of women, children and vulnerablegroups.8
2 Understand the conflict dynamicsHumanitarian and development efforts in South Sudan must be basedon a realistic, nuanced and well-informed understanding of the evolvingcontext. This includes an understanding of the drivers and dynamics ofconflict, and an appreciation of the importance of the link betweensecurity and development.In South Sudan, drivers of conflict vary across the country and overtime, but include lack of employment opportunities for youth 8 ;competition over natural resources; cattle-raiding; land disputes(including „land grabbing‟ by powerful individuals and large-scale landacquisition by private investors 9 ); ongoing Sudan/South Sudantensions; abuses by armed groups; conflict between the SPLA andrebel groups; and spill-over from neighbouring (regional) conflicts. Thecorrosive impact of these conflict drivers is exacerbated by the fact thatthe role traditionally played by tribal chiefs in non-violent conflictresolution has been eroded by displacement, urbanisation and theproliferation of small arms.A range of tools have been developed for the purpose of assistinghumanitarian and development actors to analyse and address thedrivers and dynamics of conflict. But evaluations have found that inSouth Sudan, such tools are not being used to their full potential. Lastyear‟s multi-donor evaluation, Aiding the Peace, found that very fewdonors had „explicitly and regularly referred to conflict analyses inprogramme planning‟, 10 and the government‟s recent „Survey forMonitoring the Implementation of the Fragile States Principles‟ foundthat a number of donors expressed doubts as to whether „we fullyunderstand the current context‟. 11 The use of gender-analysis inunderstanding the causes and drivers of conflict is even less likely.A lack of attention to the drivers and dynamics of conflict has a numberof possible implications: a premature shift to post-conflict recovery tothe detriment of basic service delivery; supply-driven, short-termhumanitarian aid that fails to build community resilience and can in factexacerbate vulnerability; poorly-designed programs that address thesymptoms but not the underlying causes of conflict; a focus oneconomic development without due attention to related political andsecurity priorities; and inadequate attention to regional security threatssuch as the LRA or to developing the professionalism of the state‟s ownsecurity forces. 12In addition to the under-utilisation of conflict analysis tools, there hasalso been an under-appreciation of the link between security anddevelopment. Insecurity disrupts cultivation, limits movement and trade,restricts access to markets, schools and healthcare and exacerbatesvulnerabilities – with women and children almost alwaysdisproportionately affected. One example of this is in the LRA affectedareas of Western Equatoria. According to OCHA, in 2010 LRA attacksaccounted for only a minimal number of civilian casualties, but 20 percent of displacement in South Sudan during that year, with 45,0009
Page 1: Joint Briefing Paper 06 September 2
Page 4 and 5: Recommendations1. Balance developme
Page 6 and 7: IntroductionOn 9 July, millions of
Page 10 and 11: persons displaced. All this took pl
Page 12 and 13: anecdotal evidence suggests that in
Page 14 and 15: 4 Ensure an equitable distribution
Page 16 and 17: 5 Prioritise the most vulnerable an
Page 18 and 19: • Targeting strategies must be ba
Page 20 and 21: 6 Support pro-poor, sustainablelive
Page 22 and 23: interventions must support, not exc
Page 24 and 25: ‘There’s a school, but thereare
Page 26 and 27: 8 Allow sufficient time for transit
Page 28 and 29: 9 Provide timely, predictable funds
Page 30 and 31: pooled funds managed by private con
Page 32 and 33: comes up. We should have a good fiv
Page 34 and 35: ConclusionFollowing substantial sum
Page 36 and 37: 1516171819sufficient farming commun
Page 38 and 39: 7475767778798081828384858687Bennett

Getting it Right from the Start - Oxfam New Zealand

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?