Financing Food Security: Promises and Pitfalls of the Humanitarian–Development–Peace Nexus in South Sudan
Publisher: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Author(s): Caroline Delgado, Kristina Tschunkert, Congai Murugani, and Marie Riquier
Date: 2023
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Humanitarian Assistance, Programming, Renewable Resources
Countries: South Sudan
Food insecurity is on the rise, driven predominantly by violent conflict and climate change. Resource-poor countries are among the worst affected and many depend on foreign assistance to respond to the growing crisis. At the same time, the vast amounts of assistance have failed to break the vicious circle between food insecurity and violent conflict and there is a growing policy consensus on the need to strengthen the synergies between humanitarian, development and peacebuilding (HDP) assistance. To this end, key donor governments, multilateral agencies and international organizations signed the ‘Grand Bargain: Agenda for Humanity’ at the 2016 United Nations World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), which contained commitments to better align HDP action. However, only a small proportion of foreign aid—estimated at some hundreds of millions of dollars of a possible $60 billion—genuinely supports harmonized humanitarian, development and peacebuilding efforts.
The case study in this paper explores the potential of and the challenges facing donors in supporting a nexus approach in response to the food security crisis in South Sudan. South Sudan is a pertinent case study given the protracted nature of the violent conflict, and the climate shocks and widespread economic crisis that have resulted in 8.3 million people of a total population of 12 million facing severe food insecurity. Since the country’s independence from Sudan in 2011, donors have provided close to $13 billion in official development assistance (ODA), of which a large proportion has been allocated to responding to the food security crisis. However, the number of food insecure people is higher than ever. The paper draws on a review of the secondary literature and interviews with key donors conducted in 2022. Nine donor representatives from the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the German and Swedish governments were interviewed remotely. In addition, three interviews were held with representatives of UN agencies, both of which are direct recipients of ODA funding and support local organizations in cooperation partnerships.