Photo Courtesy/WFP

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) is appealing to donors to provide early funding of $404 million for next year’s humanitarian operations in South Sudan to enable the agency to secure enough food to reduce hunger through 2025.

This appeal follows the release of WFP-FAO Hunger Hotspots report which warns that South Sudan is facing a combination of crises that continue to push the country towards new levels of severe food insecurity.

The situation, it said, has left nine million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection, worsening the already dire living conditions across the country.

The report underscored that South Sudan is facing unprecedented floods, impacting more than 1.3 million people nationwide, with Unity, Jonglei, Abyei Administrative Area, Western Bahr el Ghazal, and Lakes States being the most affected.

In a press statement on Friday, WFP said it currently has no food supplies in South Sudan to preposition for next year’s humanitarian response and needs US$404 million to frontload assistance.

The agency added that failure to do so will leave WFP reliant on expensive airdrops later in the year to reach isolated communities who are facing the most severe levels of hunger and depend on humanitarian food assistance.

“It can take months to turn pledged donor funds into food in the hands of hungry people in South Sudan. The country’s limited road networks are impassable for much of the year – particularly in the east and central parts of the country where food insecurity is highest,” said Shaun Hughes, WFP’s Acting Country Director for South Sudan.

Funds received before the end of this year will enable WFP to preposition food by road in remote hunger-hit areas during the brief dry season window from December to April, the statement said.

“Airdrops are always last resort for WFP. Every dollar spent on planes is a dollar not spent on food for hungry people. But there is a simple solution: get food to communities by road before they are cut off by heavy rain and flooding,” said Hughes.

WFP said it had to double the amount of food delivered by airdrops during the lean season of 2024 to meet hunger needs, adding US$30 million to overall operational costs reportedly because food aid did not arrive in the country in time.

On the other hand, WFP said was able to reduce airdrops by 70 per cent in 2019 when prepositioning was optimized due to generous donor contributions and the timely arrival of food.

The agency said acute food insecurity in South Sudan – where 56 per cent of population already faces crisis (IPC3) or worse levels of hunger – is likely to worsen as the 2025 lean season approaches, typically starting in May.