South Sudan Appeal
Humanitarian Action for Children
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal helps support the agency’s work as it provides conflict- and disaster-affected children with access to water, sanitation, nutrition, education, health and protection services. Return to main appeal page.
South Sudan snapshot
Appeal highlights
- In 2024, South Sudan will face significant humanitarian needs alongside drastic cuts to aid budgets . In 2024, 9.4 million people, including 5 million children, 2.2 million women and 1.3 million people with disabilities will require humanitarian assistance.
- Conflict and insecurity, health epidemics, influxes of returnees and refugees, climate change and flooding and high levels of inflation are exacerbating needs of the most vulnerable, particularly children. South Sudan expects to host its first election as a new nation in December 2024.
- UNICEF’s humanitarian strategy prioritizes the most acute needs and complements development programmes and resilience-building. UNICEF works through community structures and partnerships with a localized, adapted response, strengthening feedback and accountability with communities. Action is risk-informed and evidence-based and embraces climate adaptation, conflict-sensitive approaches and anticipatory action to mitigate the impact of disasters.
- Even though children in South Sudan are facing increasing levels of humanitarian need, the humanitarian response there has been significantly underfunded. In 2024, UNICEF will require $238.9 million for nutrition, health, WASH, education and child protection interventions.
Key planned targets
720,000 people affected by health emergencies reached with primary health care services
350,000 children with severe wasting admitted for treatment
82,500 children/caregivers accessing community-based mental health and psychosocial support
700,000 people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
South Sudan will face a complex year in 2024, with increasing vulnerability, growing humanitarian needs and severe aid budget cuts. The political environment is fragile, with attention focused on fulfilling the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, and on elections in December. In 2024, 9.4 million people and 5 million children require humanitarian assistance and protection, 15 per cent of them estimated to have a disability.
Political instability, violence, widespread flooding, disease outbreaks and high inflation are compounding the complex, chronic needs of the most vulnerable people in the country, especially children. Livelihoods are severely impacted and access to education, nutrition, water, sanitation and health services hampered. Children are at a high risk of abuse, violence, exploitation and psychosocial distress; and 2.8 million children (52 per cent girls) out of school are especially vulnerable to risks. Women and children are the most vulnerable population to gender-based violence.
South Sudan is home to a displacement crisis: 2.3 million people are internally displaced, 148,000 existing returnees require durable solutions and 337,000 refugees from other countries are living in camps. Further, conflict in neighbouring Sudan has exacerbated the situation: in 2023, from April to September 281,129 individuals (including 67,826 girls and 67,286 boys) crossed into South Sudan in immediate need of assistance and protection. Displacements have further strained existing services; 46 per cent of health facilities are moderately operational, and less than 10 per cent of the population has access to improved sanitation. These conditions increase the risk of disease outbreaks, already contributing to record high rates of malnutrition, with more than 2.2 million people in need of nutrition assistance. In 2023, there was an increase in preventable childhood diseases, including 5,503 measles cases, a 52.5 per cent increase compared with 2022.
South Sudan is ranked the second most susceptible nation to the effects of natural hazards, including droughts and flooding, and recorded the most child displacements due to floods globally, at 11.8 per cent of the child population. Regional El Niño effects in late 2023 will worsen floods, which have already displaced more than 1 million people and hampered people's access to services. Drought in neighbouring countries, as well as depreciation of the South Sudanese pound may further drive up food costs, which have increased by 122 per cent since 2022 for some staples, contributing to food insecurity. In 2024, more than 60 per cent of the population is expected to be acutely food insecure, and 2 million lactating women and children under age 5 are expected to suffer from wasting .
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF will assist the most vulnerable women and children in the hardest-to-reach areas, aligned to the country’s Humanitarian Response Plan. Innovative, multi-sector approaches to assistance are expected to save lives, alleviate suffering, maintain dignity and protect children's rights. Priority will be given to programmes addressing the needs of children and women experiencing the most severe consequences of multiple vulnerabilities.
UNICEF will reinforce risk-informed approaches, promoting climate adaptation and strengthening the population’s resilience to shocks. At the same time, UNICEF will address underlying drivers of vulnerability and instability. Linkages between humanitarian, development and peace approaches will be enhanced by understanding the complex interrelatedness of compounding risks and by applying a critical conflict-sensitive lens to tailor interventions. A key focus, complementing the priority on acute needs, is to expand innovative, durable, community-led solutions that can reduce reliance on humanitarian assistance.
UNICEF's risk-based preparedness promotes community-based anticipatory action to mitigate the impact of hazards and enable a timely, quality response. The organization will reinforce localization by strengthening local systems and capacities and expanding partnerships with local actors, prioritizing women-led organizations.
Services for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse and the reduction of gender-based violence will be scaled up in all interventions. Disability- and gender-sensitive approaches will ensure responses are targeted and designed to meet the distinct needs of women, men, girls, boys and persons with disabilities. Accountability to affected populations will be key, encompassing enhancing feedback and participation, again prioritizing children, women, youth and persons with disabilities.
WASH action includes climate-resilient, safe water supply and sanitation services with a focus on disease and malnutrition reduction. Education efforts will identity the most at risk out-of-school children and provide formal/non-formal education in the hardest-to-reach areas. With an expanded social work workforce , child protection interventions will provide tailored, specialized services for the most vulnerable children, youth and adolescents to break cycles of violence and trauma, provide gender-based violence support and risk reduction, and mental health and psychosocial services. To reduce childhood mortality and morbidity, nutrition and health efforts will focus on child survival, scaling up life-saving treatment and prevention for children with severe wasting and at high risk of moderate wasting , outbreak response, malaria prevention and immunization.
UNICEF's strengthened field presence and monitoring, in partnership with civil society organizations and the Government, promotes quality, dynamic mobile responses that can adapt to rapidly changing needs. UNICEF is committed to strengthening coordination – with dedicated capacities – as lead agency of the WASH and Nutrition Clusters and the Child Protection Area of Responsibility, and as co-lead of the Education Cluster.
Programme targets
Find out more about UNICEF's work
Highlights
Humanitarian Action is at the core of UNICEF’s mandate to realize the rights of every child. This edition of Humanitarian Action for Children – UNICEF’s annual humanitarian fundraising appeal – describes the ongoing crises affecting children in South Sudan; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.