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Amitabh Behar named Oxfam International’s Executive Director

Oxfam International is pleased to announce the appointment of Amitabh Behar as its new Executive Director. Behar is a respected global civil society leader, with three decades of experience and extensive work on human rights, economic inequalities, governance accountability, philanthropy, democracy and social justice. He was selected following a competitive recruitment process.

Behar joined Oxfam in April 2018 as the Chief Executive of Oxfam India. More recently, he served as Oxfam International’s Interim Executive Director.

“Behar is a thoughtful and creative feminist leader, with an in-depth understanding of the causes and complexities of poverty, inequality, discrimination and suffering. We are confident in his ability to convene our confederation, alongside our partners, to deliver our vision for a just and equal world,” said Dr. Aruna Rao, the Chair of the Oxfam International Board of Directors.

Behar said: “I embark on this new chapter acutely aware of the global and interconnected challenges we face in our world today. We require urgent action built on new solidarities, new imaginations, and new dreams to deliver a more equal and sustainable future for all.

“Oxfam carries a rich legacy rooted in working with communities while advocating for systemic change. I am eager to channel our collective energies, boldness, resources, and partnerships in support of peoples’ power for the good of majority of the global population.”

Behar has made valuable contributions to Oxfam’s transformation of its own confederation, decolonizing its decision-making and strengthening its collective structure and policies. He has been widely recognized for his work on people-centric advocacy, governance accountability, social and economic equality, and citizen participation.

Prior to Oxfam, Behar was Executive Director of the National Foundation for India and Co-Chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. He has also served as the Vice-Chair of the Board of CIVICUS and the Chair of Navsarjan (Ahmedabad) and President of Yuva in Mumbai. He currently serves on the boards of several other organizations, including the Global Fund for Community Foundation and the Norwegian Human Rights Fund.

Contact: Rachel Schaevitz, [email protected]

Unfair share report: Unequal climate finance to East Africa hunger crisis

Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan have incurred $7.4bn of livestock losses alone as a result of climate change

Despite being largely responsible for the worsening climate crisis in East Africa, rich nations paid Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan just $2.4 billion in climate-related development finance in 2021, in stark contrast to the $53.3 billion East Africa says it needs annually to meet its 2030 climate goals.

Oxfam’s “Unfair Share” Report published today, shows that the biggest polluting nations have fallen short of meeting both the climate and the humanitarian funds East African countries need to recover from their climate-fuelled hunger crisis. It highlights the impact of climate change on the future of the region.

Oxfam in Africa Director, Fati N’Zi-Hassane said: “Even by their own generous accounts, polluting nations have delivered only pittance to help East Africa scale up their mitigation and adaptation efforts. Nearly half the funds (45%) they did give were loans, plunging the region further into more debt.”

A prolonged drought and erratic rainfalls have killed nearly 13 million animals, and decimated hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops, leaving millions of people without income or food. These four East African countries have incurred up to an estimated $30 billion of losses from 2021 to the end of 2023. Oxfam calculates that these countries also lost approximately $7.4 billion worth of livestock.

As a result, over 40 million people across the four countries are suffering severe hunger because of a two-year drought and years of flooding, compounded by displacement and conflict. Despite the soaring humanitarian need, rich nations have only met about one third of the UN appeal for East Africa this year.

“At the heart of East Africa’s hunger crisis is an abhorrent climate injustice. Rich polluting nations continue to rig the system by disregarding the billions owed to East Africa, while millions of people are left to starve from repeated climate shocks,” said N’Zi-Hassane.

Industrialised economies have significantly contributed to the climate crisis, which now disproportionally affects regions like East Africa. The G7 countries and Russia alone have been responsible for 85 percent of global emissions since 1850. This is 850 times the emissions of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan combined.

“Global financial institutions are also complicit in contributing to the debt spiral that many developing countries are in. Onerous repayment cycles (to IFIs, bilateral and private creditors) prevent vulnerable countries from adapting to climate change or fully recovering from these consecutive shocks, like climate-fuelled hunger crises..”

Extreme weather, now more severe and frequent, is the primary driver of hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and in part in South Sudan, where climate change has made the drought 100 times more likely.

“These pummelling shocks have depleted people’s reserves, leaving those already vulnerable with nothing to fend for themselves. Since the last drought in 2017, the number of people who need urgent aid across the four countries has more than doubled – from 20.7 million to 43.5 million,” said N’Zi-Hassane.

The climate crisis has taken its toll especially on women and girls. Women in Somalia told Oxfam they now have to walk more than four hours every day to fetch water, often in treacherous journeys – a significantly increased distance compared to previous droughts. Too often, when food is scarce, mothers eat last and least; and girls are the first to be dropped out of school or married off at a young age so there is one less mouth to feed.

Nimo Suleiman, a displaced mother of two from Somaliland, said “I have witnessed previous droughts but I have never seen anything like this before. The closest water point for us is five kilometers away, the road to the water point is not safe and very hot, but our family’s survival depends on us making that journey.”

“At the first African Climate Summit, Oxfam urges African leaders to speak up and hold rich polluting nations to account for this climate crisis. Rich nations must immediately inject funds to meet the $8.74 billion UN humanitarian needs for East Africa in order to save lives now,” N’Zi-Hassane said.

“It is equally crucial for the biggest polluters to pay their fair share of the money East Africa needs to strengthen its efforts to help its most vulnerable citizens prepare for the next climatic shock. These funds must be sustainable, in the form of grants rather than loans.”

“Leading up to COP28, African voices must be loud in demanding rich polluting nations to drastically cut their emissions, and to compensate East Africa for all their climate loss and damage so that the region can recover from these worsening climate shocks.”

Notes to the Editors

  • Read Oxfam’s “Unfair Share” report.
  • Oxfam is holding a roundtable at the African Climate Summit on 5 Sept .
  • The $2.4 billion figure is based on the OECD records of “Climate-related development finance” statistics reported figures in 2021 for Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan, which capture both bilateral and multilateral climate-related external development finance flows. For more detail on the OECD methodology please see the OECD Methodology note.
  • Out of the total $2.4 billion funds provided, only $1.33 billion were in the form of grants (54.5%) while $1.09 billion were in the form of loans (45%). Source: OECD
  • The figure $53.3 billion is the four countries identified annual needed funds for the period 2021 to 2030, in their “National Determined Contributions” (NDCs) to enable them to implement their climate goals under the Paris Agreement. It includes: $62 billion for Kenya, $316 billion for Ethiopia, $55.5 billion for Somalia and $100 billion for South Sudan.
  • According to the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the East Africa region’s average annual loss from climate change until 2030 is 2-4% of its annual GDP. For Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan, the total combined GDP in 2022 is $260 Billion.
  • Oxfam calculated livestock loss for Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia based on 2021 and 2023 estimates of the total government reported loss of 12.95 million heads of livestock – including 6.85 million livestock in Ethiopia, 2.6 million livestock in Kenya and 3.5 million livestock in Somalia. Ethiopia and Somalia have not provided an estimate of the value of the lost livestock. The approximate cost of per animal head in the region is $ 576.9, totalling $7.2 Billion for all 12.95 million livestock lost.
  • Food insecurity figures are based on IPC classification of the number of people in crisis or worse levels of food insecurity (IPC3+) for Ethiopia (11.8 million), Kenya (5.4 million), Somalia (6.5 million) and South Sudan (7.7 million).
  • Humanitarian need figures is based on the 2023 UN Humanitarian Response Plans for Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan and Kenya.
  • Humanitarian need figures for 2017 are based on 2017 Humanitarian Response Document for Ethiopia; Somalia and South Sudan , and the 2017 Flash Appeal for Kenya.

Contact Information

Rachel Schaevitz, Communication Manager, [email protected]

Over 20 million more people hungry in Africa’s “year of nutrition”

Despite promises, nearly three-quarters of African governments reduced their agricultural budgets while paying almost double that on arms.

In the 12 months that African leaders vowed to improve food security in the continent, over 20 million more people have been pushed into severe hunger – equivalent to the entire population of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe combined.

Today a fifth of the African population of 278 million is undernourished, and 55 million of its children under the age of five are stunted due to severe malnutrition.

“The hunger African people are facing today is a direct result of inadequate political choices. In a year marred with global inflation and climate disasters, African leaders should have stepped up to their responsibility”, said Fati N’Zi-Hassane, Oxfam in Africa Director.

Chronic underinvestment in agriculture is a key cause of the widespread hunger experienced in 2022. The majority of African governments (48 out of 54) reportedly spend an average of 3.8 percent of their budgets on agriculture -some spending as little as one percent. Nearly three quarters of these governments have reduced their share of budget spent on agricultural since 2019, failing to honour their Malabo commitments to invest at least 10% of their budget on agriculture.

In contrast, African governments spent nearly double that budget (6.4%) on arms last year. Ongoing conflict, especially in Sahel and Central Africa, has continued to destroy farmland, displace people and fuel hunger.

With no major government support to farmers or adequate climate adaptation, production of staple food like cereals dropped last year, despite the continent possessing nearly a quarter of the world’s agricultural land. Worsening climate-fuelled droughts and floods, and a global rise in fuel and fertilizers prices, made food unobtainable for millions of people. In 2022 alone, food inflation rose by double digits in all but ten African countries.

“During the rainy season, we did not have money to pay for fertilizers. On top of that, our donkey died, so I had to cultivate our field with a daba [a simple ploughing tool]. The attic is empty,” says Sidbou, a female farmer in Burkina Faso.

As the 36th AU Summit – which focuses on intra-continental free trade this year– begins today, millions of smallholder farmers, who are vital food producers in the continent, cannot reach markets in neighbouring countries due to poor infrastructure and high intra-African tariffs. Many African nations find it cheaper to import food from outside the continent than from their next-door neighbour.

“As Africa’s Heads of State meet today at this year’s Summit, let this not be another year of broken promises. We urge them to honour commitments they collectively made almost 10 years ago by investing in agriculture and supporting smallholder farmers,” said N’Zi-Hassane.

“African leaders must also take serious steps to free up intra-continental trade to help local farmers. They must equally ramp up programmes to help people rebuild their lives and cope with recurrent climatic shocks,” added N’Zi-Hassane.

 

Notes to the Editors

  • As of August 2022 (the last available figure), there were 139.95 million people in 35 African countries living in Crisis or worse (IPC 3 or higher) acute food insecurity. That is an increase of 17% (20.26 million people) over the same number a year earlier (119.69 million people). While, this increase can be attributed to both a worsening acute food insecurity situation and an expansion in the population analyzed between 2021 and 2022, even when considering the share of the analyzed population in IPC3+ equivalent, the proportion of the population in these phases has increased in 2022 compared to 2021. Source: Global Report on Food Crises Mid-Year Update 2022 . For more details on the IPC classification please see IPC Technical Manual Version 3.1
  • The population of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe combined is approximately 21.3 million according to WorldoMeter in February 2023.
  • Malnutrition figures from the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022
  • The average spending on military as share of total budget is 6.43% (2021) as reported at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute , while the average spending in agriculture (2021) was 3.8% as reported on GovernmentSpendingWatch
  • South Sudan spends less than 1% of its budget on Agriculture. Calculations of all agricultural spending in Africa is based on data from the government spending watch. , national budgets and FAO.
  • According to the CAADP report: and the FAO Crop Prospects report, Africa’s cereal production in 2022 was 207.4 million tons, a decline of 3.4 million tons from the average of the previous five years.
  • COVID-19 in addition to climate change resulted in decrease of access to input, food production, food transportation and distribution and processing.  In 2014 African leaders signed the Malabo Declaration, which stipulated that African governments must spend at least 10% of their budget on Agriculture and supporting farmers.
  • In 2022, food inflation rose by double digits in all Africa countries except ten. Source:Trading economics.

Rich countries’ climate related aid to West Africa is insufficient and dangerously worsening debt levels

Rich countries and multilateral donors have so far mobilised only 7 percent of the estimated US$198.88 billion that West African countries need by 2030 to cope with the climate crisis and pursue their own green development.

According to a new Oxfam study today, Climate Finance in West Africa, 62 percent of US$11.7 billion declared by donors between 2013 and 2019 have been mostly in the form of loans, which will have to be repaid, many with interest, aggravating the debt crisis in most West African countries.

Climate finance is a highly-contentious issue that again threatens the success of the crucial UNFCCC climate talks in Egypt this November. Oxfam and a hundred African civil society organizations are concerned that African countries will come to the summit with little confidence that donors will honour their repeated promises to mobilise 100 billion a year for climate action in developing countries (a target that has been missed by US$16.7 billion in 2020).

These organisations are calling on rich countries – historically responsible for climate change – to assume their fair share to help the region face the escalating climate crises that has hit the African continent.

The report warns that rich countries are increasingly using loans to help West African countries cope with climate change. Between 2013 and 2019 loans have increased by 610 percent from US$243 million to US$1.72 billion. By comparison, grants have only increased by 79 percent. Among the donors that have made the most use of loans as a proportion of their total climate financing are the World Bank (94 percent), France (94 percent), Japan (84 percent), the African Development Bank (AfDB) (83 percent) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) (79 percent).

“At a time when West Africa is reeling from multiple crises including climate, hunger, and security, these financial flows are grossly inadequate and not what was promised. Many of these are now loans that actually reduce countries’ capacity to cope. Most countries are falling into a spiral of debt and poverty, which runs counter to the spirit of climate justice. The consequences are disastrous for millions of people who are paying the price for the impacts of climate change yet not responsible for it,” said Assalama Dawalack Sidi, Oxfam’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa.

  • The consequences on debt and the capacity of countries to provide basic services to populations facing multiple crises are very real. For example:
    Although Niger (7th most vulnerable country in the world to climate change), Mali (13th most vulnerable), and Burkina Faso (24th most vulnerable) all face a risk of debt distress, they have received a sizable share of climate finance in the form of loans and debt: 51 percent, 43 percent, and 41 percent, respectively. These countries are already being pushed into a new wave of austerity measures by the IMF and are planning combined budget cuts of US$7.2 billion by 2026 which will further limit their ability to invest in quality public services and protection for their citizens.
  • Ghana currently receives 40 percent of its climate finance in the form of loans and debt, despite already being at high risk of debt distress. In 2019, Ghana was spending 55 times more on debt servicing than on agriculture. It is planning a US$23.3 billion budget cut by 2026.

Oxfam believes that funding in West Africa should focus on adaptation measures, rather than mitigation given the region is a very low contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is an 82 percent gap between the adaptation funding reported in 2019 and the needs expressed by West African countries.

Chad, the world’s most vulnerable and least prepared country for climate change, has the largest funding gap for adaptation with 95 percent of its financial needs not covered (US$1.49 billion of US$1.57 billion per year) by 2030. These findings are all the more alarming given that hunger is increasing at an unprecedented rate in the region, in part driven by droughts that are becoming more frequent and severe as rainfall becomes more erratic and unpredictable. There has been a 154 percent increase in the number of people now food insecure between March-May 2022 compared to the five-year average between 2017-2021.

“We demand that all donors urgently increase their climate financing and honour their promises. These funds must be disbursed as grants not loans and must respond to the priorities and adaptation needs of recipient countries and their communities,” said Sidi.

The report’s recommendations support the recent joint statement by two dozen African leaders meeting earlier this month at a forum in Cairo, where they urged the richest countries to uphold their aid pledges so the continent can tackle the effects of climate change for which it shares little blame.

The report is being published ahead of citizen caravans organised by about 100 African civil society organisations, including Oxfam, that will travel across 23 countries on the continent to Egypt. The caravans will mobilise communities and policy makers along the way to highlight the harm that climate change is causing to Africa and demand more justice in climate finance.

“As Africa heats up, African communities’ temperature is rising too. Today, people are uniting to demand more climate justice. The international community, and rich donors in particular, must urgently hear their cries,” said Sidi.

 

Notes to the editors

  • Download the report Climate Finance in West Africa: Assessing the State of Climate Finance in One of the World’s Regions Worst Hit by the Climate Crisis. The eight West African countries analysed are Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ghana and Nigeria.
  • The levels of climate finance reported by global donors in 2019 (US$2.5 billion) represent only 12.7 percent of the average annual financial needs for external climate finance expressed by West African countries in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) (covering the period 2021-2030). However, when considering Climate-specific net assistance (CSNA), current public funding that can be considered relevant for climate action would fall to 7.1 percent of average annual needs between 2021 and 2030, representing an alarming climate finance gap of 92.9 percent. The CSNA is a method of calculating climate finance developed by Oxfam, designed to be more equitable than the tools currently used by donors. The CSNA estimate includes 100 percent grants and grant equivalent of loans, guarantees and other debt instruments.
  • Oxfam’s estimate of net climate-specific aid is based on climate-related development finance as documented by the OECD.
  • See the Aggregate trends of climate finance provided and mobilized by developed countries in 2013-2020 against the 100 billion annual target, OECD, 2022.
  • Follow the caravans for the climate in Africa that will crisscross 23 African countries (Senegal, Benin, Niger, Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, DRC, Gambia, Guinea, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, South Africa, South Sudan, Togo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Somalia) and will converge in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, at the time of the world climate conference (COP 27) from November 7 to 18, 2022. These caravans are a catalyst for the demands of African populations -especially youth and women- on climate finance (loss and damage, adaptation, and mitigation). They are organized by civil society organisations such as Young Volunteers for the Environment (YVE), CIDSE – International family of Catholic social justice organizations and a hundred others, with the support of Oxfam.
  • According to Government Spending Watch, in Ghana in 2019, total public debt service (external and domestic) reached 75 percent of government revenue, with domestic debt accounting for two-thirds.
  • The Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) index assesses a country’s vulnerability to climate disruption and its ability to mobilise investment. Chad is ranked 182nd out of 182 countries.
  • While some loans are concessional, Oxfam is even more concerned by the high prevalence of non-concessional finance among some donors, especially the AfDB (US$454m; 43 percent of its total), United States (US$308m; 39 percent of total), the GCF (US$229m; 73 percent of total), France (US$167m; 13 percent of total), and the EIB (US$137m; 68 percent of total).
  • The newly released report by World Bank Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) for the G5 Sahel region estimates that up to 13.5 million people across the Sahel could fall into poverty due to climate change-related shocks by 2050 if urgent climate adaptation measures are not taken.
  • 14 out of 16 West African countries plan to reduce their national budgets by a total of US$69.8 billion between 2022 and 2026 due to pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) through its COVID-19 loans., based on the World Economic Outlook Database of the IMF and Oxfam’s analysis Adding Fuel to Fire: how IMF’s demands for austerity will drive up inequality worldwide.
  • According to calculations based on World Bank databases, an individual living in West Africa emits only 0.43 tons of CO2 per year. In comparison, a U.S. citizen emits 15.2 tons, with the global average being 4.5 tons.
  • Oxfam’s report HUNGER IN A HEATING WORLD: How the climate crisis is fuelling hunger in an already hungry world shows that climate change is deepening hunger in 10 of the world’s worst climate hotspots, including Burkina Faso and Niger. For food security projections, see the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG) estimates.
  • African nations meeting in Cairo from 7 to 9 September call for climate change funding ahead of COP27.

Demands for austerity and spiralling debt are ‘sabotaging’ Africa’s Covid-19 recovery

43 African governments are facing expenditure cuts totalling $183 billion (equivalent to 5.4 percent of GDP) over the next five years, reveals new analysis from Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI) today. If these cuts are implemented, their chances of achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will likely disappear.

The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index: Africa Briefing Paper shows that Africa’s debt burden is stifling post-COVID economic recovery and stagnating the public services necessary to reduce poverty and inequality. Africa’s debt burden has been climbing steadily, averaging 67 percent of GDP in 2021. Debt repayments are equivalent to 51 percent of African countries’ budget revenue and 22 times more than their spending on social protection. Debt servicing exceeds spending on healthcare in all but six African countries, rising to 77 times more in South Sudan. The G20 countries have so far offered little relief: debt cancellation or suspension amounts to just $9.3 billion.

‘‘Majority of African governments know and want to lift their citizens from poverty but their coffers are empty, so they need support instead of more pressure,’’ said Peter Kamalingin, Oxfam’s Pan Africa Program director. ‘‘At a time when poor countries are faced with increasing costs of living and with poor people unable to afford food, it cannot be the time to suffocate them with more austerity. That is the surest way to undermine recovery, widen inequality and destroy livelihoods.’’

The index ranks 47 African countries on their policies on public services, tax and workers’ rights. South Africa ranks first, followed by Seychelles, Tunisia, Namibia and Lesotho. At the bottom are South Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Liberia and the Central African Republic. North Africa outperforms Africa’s other subregions, with Central Africa ranking last.

The analysis shows that African governments’ failure to tackle inequality ― through support for public healthcare and education, workers’ rights and a fair tax system ― left them woefully ill-equipped to tackle the  COVID-19  pandemic.  The IMF has contributed to these failures by consistently pushing a policy agenda that seeks to balance national budgets through cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest,  and moves to undermine labour rights and protections. As a result, when COVID-19 struck, 52 percent of Africans lacked access to healthcare and 83 percent had no safety nets to fall back on if they lost their job or became sick.

Quality public services are proven to reduce inequality. For example, they have reduced inequality by 34 percent in Namibia, 22 percent in South Africa and 19 percent in Benin. However, Africa’s unfair tax system is increasing inequality by 1 percent. In Tanzania and Tunisia, fair tax policies have slashed inequality by 10 percent.

Oxfam and DFI are urging the G20 to reallocate and waive off unnecessary conditionalities so that lower-income countries can access most of the $100 billion worth of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) with ease. They are calling for increased aid flows to Africa to increase access to inequality-busting public services and COVID-19 vaccines. The vaccination rate in Africa needs to increase significantly if the continent is to meet the 70 percent vaccine coverage target set for June 2022.

‘‘That some governments have fared better than others at tackling inequality confirms we can end inequality if we make the right policy decisions. This must include taxing the wealthiest, curbing illicit financial flows, restructuring debt held by poor countries and ending the pandemic through equitable access to COVID-19 Vaccines and therapeutics.’’ ― Peter Kamalingin.

 

Notes to editors

Download Oxfam’s Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index: Africa.

Our analysis of the IMF’s COVID-19 loans during the first year of the pandemic is also available for download.

As rains in South Sudan start again, communities face more flooding amid a growing hunger crisis, says Oxfam

Increased flooding in South Sudan threatens to deepen the dire hunger crisis, with an estimated 8.3 million people expected to experience severe food insecurity in the coming months.

Just weeks after devastating floodwaters finally receded across South Sudan, rains have begun again with dire humanitarian consequences expected.

In this narrow window between receding and rising waters, Oxfam and other humanitarians are acting urgently to reach communities that had been cut off by flooding and unrest to assess the need. As the full scale of the crisis is becoming clearer, the humanitarian community is scaling up our response and preparations to help communities cope with the current rainy season and calling for more resources and access to save lives.

The arrival of a heavy rainy season has left communities without a chance to recover – if projections hold true, the current rainy season will potentially bring additional flooding later this year and another cycle of hunger, displacement, and disease.

This is the latest in an unprecedented cycle of climate disasters, as cycles of extreme drought followed by heavy rainfall have caused devastating floods for the fifth consecutive year in South Sudan. The worst impacts have been felt in Upper Nile, Lakes, and Jonglei states, affecting 835,000 people, and forcing 350,000 to flee their homes, according to OCHA. This flooding is one of the many-layered crises, in addition to intercommunal conflict, COVID-19, and more, that is leading to a growing hunger crisis across the country. One that has already left over 7.19 million people struggling with crisis levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or higher).

According to the 2022 HNO, the people of South Sudan will experience the highest level of food insecurity in their history with an estimated 8.3 million people (including refugees) expected to experience severe food insecurity by the peak of the lean season (May – July 2022), 7% more than 2021 which had 7.7 million people at the same level during the same period. To respond to this hunger crisis Oxfam South Sudan alongside other Oxfam Countries in the horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia) has declared the Hunger crisis a Category 1 emergency calling for an urgent humanitarian scale-up. Through this response, Oxfam South Sudan hopes to reach 383,000 people with a multi-sectorial lifesaving Food Security, WASH, and Protection response.

Oxfam in South Sudan’s Acting Country Director, Juliet Moriku Balikowa said, “After historic flooding, families have been pushed past the brink. We’re just now able to reach some of the worst-impacted communities, and soon many will be cut off again by more rains. So many people are without clean drinking water and safe hygiene and have lost their homes, crops, livestock, and livelihoods – the tools they would need to get back on their feet. The flooding is only the latest deadly challenge South Sudanese people are facing and we will only see this hunger crisis grow exponentially if we don’t see a massive and urgent humanitarian scale-up. We have a narrow window and donors, leaders, and humanitarians must act now.”

Hunger is a massive threat and is only set to grow – There were already areas of South Sudan categorized as “famine-likely” last year, and this additional climate shock has driven communities into an even deeper food crisis, such as farmland, crops, seeds, and livestock have been devastated. These losses are especially painful in a context of already severe levels of hunger and where the resilience of communities has been seriously eroded by years of conflict.

The flooding has additional knock-on effects – it has forced people into cramped communal living – another risk during COVID-19 – on top of the risks of sexual and gender-based violence and other health risks. It’s also putting South Sudan’s fragile education system in jeopardy as many schools have been forced to close while they’re used as shelters for the displaced. As Oxfam reported last year, school disruptions are particularly harmful to girls, who have struggled to pick their studies back up due to increased child marriage, family obligations, and more.

While Oxfam and partners have been adapting to address the flooding and its impacts, the response is insufficient due to funding, access, and other factors – and people’s needs are growing by the day as their small savings and other coping measures run out.“In Walgak, after distribution of unconditional cash assistance to 500 most vulnerable households, most of which have children and women suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition and Moderate Acute Malnutrition. We see them feeling helpless and overwhelmed as their needs surpass our resources. We are concerned that women are still seen walking long hours to get wild foods to feed their families”, says Lakes Tesfaw, Oxfam Program Manager in Walgak.

Oxfam condemns the continued violence against humanitarians and civilians and calls on the government and armed groups to ensure that humanitarians are protected as they deliver lifesaving aid. The recent attacks on aid workers add to a terrible legacy of violence that makes South Sudan one of the most dangerous places in the world to deliver humanitarian assistance and appealing to those with power to provide unhindered access to humanitarian workers

 Ms. Balikowa added, “South Sudanese communities impacted by repeated flooding and growing hunger – on top of the seemingly endless cycle of challenges they meet every day – need urgent support so they can recover, rebuild, and form a foundation to withstand future shocks like these. But, in the long term, the people of South Sudan ultimately need sustainable peace – to help prepare for and respond to massive issues like the climate crisis together. Communities and the humanitarian workers striving to support them must be protected and given the resources to meet these challenges head-on.”

 

Notes:

Copyright © 2024 Oxfam Aotearoa.

Oxfam is a worldwide development organisation that mobilises the power of people against injustice. Oxfam Aotearoa is a registered charity with the New Zealand Charities Register (registration CC24641). Donations are tax refundable.

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