RAAH Senior Staff show organization's revised policy and strategy documents/Date 31.05.2023-By Lou Nelson

The Rural Action Against Hunger organization on Tuesday launched a five-year strategic plan to suit the relative peace in South Sudan.

Founded by a team of Committed and Professional South Sudanese in Exile in Uganda in 2004,  the organization initially operated under the Chair of International Aid Sweden (IAS) / International Aid Services, now called LM International operating here in South Sudan.

RAAH was officially registered as a National Non-governmental Organization under the Company Act, of 2003.

Since its establishment, the organization had been operating on short-term strategic plans since its inception eighteen years ago.

Initially, the organization operated on six-month to one-year strategic plans to respond to humanitarian needs in the country, but now, the launched policies will help it implement activities on a longer-term scale.

The Executive Director for RAAH, Henry Taban Solomon said the strategic plans took into consideration the changing dynamics of the country.

He said the focus has shifted from dealing with emergency situations to recovery and development programs bearing in mind the peace implementation in the country.

“Because of the dynamics by then, our strategic plans used to be six months or one-year plans simply because of the emergency situations impacted by the intensity of conflicts, and certain natural disasters used to give room for emergency interventions,” he said.

But apparently, he said, “With the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement, and with the kind of resemblance of peace we are seeing, we have shifted away from short-term emergency planning to long-term planning.”

In its long-term strategic planning, Taban said the organization has not only included components of relief, but of recovery and development.

Some of the revised strategic plans and policies include the organization’s human resources management, code of conduct, constitution, monitoring and evaluation, and finances, as it expands its child protection programs, among others.

Mary Benjamin Loki who is the chairperson of the organization’s board of directors, and also the Director General for Food Reserves at the National Ministry of Agriculture officially launched the new documents.

“Where there are policies and where there is a strategic plan you will not go astray. Now we have the supporting document here,

Loki believed that RAAH is revitalized 100% and that the policies and strategic plans will enable the organization to achieve its mission and objectives without fail.

“You can always do  it and you will never fall,”  and she said, “It’s our [organization’s] role to make sure it succeeds.”

The organization’s main activities include; agriculture and food security, it added other activities including Water, hygiene, and sanitation [WASH], resilience and peacebuilding, and child protection.