We are here in South Sudan

In recent decades, South Sudan has faced famine, war, and floods. Entire generations have grown up in violent circumstances, which have left many people traumatised. We stayed throughout all these - sometimes dangerous - situations, and earned the trust of the communities where we work.

Ongoing crisis in the world's youngest country

people are internally displaced in South Sudan

of the internally displaced persons are residing with host communities

of South Sudan's people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity

Aid is desperately needed

Integrated emergency relief

Even though a National Unity Government was formed early 2020, there is still a lot of conflict in South Sudan. Parties that were not included in the peace talks continue fighting and levels of community-based violence have soared. Recent years brought unprecedented flooding to the country, destroying the livelihoods of many. The coronavirus pandemic caused the humanitarian crisis to intensify. An estimated 7.2 million people are in need of assistance.

We work with internally displaced persons (IDPs), returnees and host communities. Our working areas are different locations in Jonglei State (Bor South and Pibor). We focus particularly on these sectors: food security; water, sanitation, and hygiene; education; and peacebuilding. With diverse projects in these four sectors, we have an integrated approach in mind, from emergency relief to recovery.

Food distributions and access to markets

The majority of South Sudanese depend on agriculture-based livelihoods which cannot be maintained once they are displaced, which means that these communities become extremely vulnerable. Currently, levels of acute malnutrition are very high, particularly in Jonglei State. ZOA has to increasingly put its focus on integrated emergency relief. Given the current context it is ZOA’s aim is to use a blended approach: to expand the disaster response activities in South Sudan, while at the same time continuing working on recovery projects as far as the context allows. We aim to secure food availability through provision of emergency cash or food distributions to affected households, and to support local farmers to increase food production and for surplus production to improve access to the market, including provision of seeds and tools.

The impact of ZOA's work in South Sudan in 2020

With a team of 37 staff members we supported 13,149 people

of our budget was spent on relief aid

people were supported in their food security

got access to clean water

Working with civil society organisations

ZOA implements relief and recovery programs directly and in close collaboration with national NGOs. Capacity building of civil society organisations is at the heart of ZOA’s mandate. In South Sudan, our focus is to support sustainable and effective grassroots organisations and enable them to advocate on behalf of the communities they represent to the government. In addition, these organisations will be equipped to implement quality programmes. This is in line with ZOA's commitment to the Grand Bargain. Grand Bargain signatories are committed to making principled humanitarian action as local as possible.

working together

Donors and partners

We work with funding from, and in cooperation with EuropeAid, World Renew/Canadian Foodgrains Bank, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the German Foreign Office, Stichting Pharus, Stichting Channah, EO Metterdaad and ZOA Netherlands.

Regina John from South Sudan

I was about to harvest my crops when the floods washed everything away. We collected firewood to sell it on the market and survive. We were able to buy some food, but sometimes we had nothing to eat for two or three days.

Read Regina's story