Page 57 - CIWA-AR24

Horn of Africa

South Sudan Transboundary

Waters Support Program

Context Progress
eginning in 2022, the European infrastructure to carry out its mandate. upporting transboundary water
B
S
Union’s INFORM Index has Information systems and the management and water resources
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ranked South Sudan as the world’s hydrometric monitoring network are planning: In FY24, the team collaborated
most vulnerable country to climate weak and the use of DSSs to guide with the United Nations High
change and as having the lowest level WRM is minimal. Commissioner for Refugees to gain
of coping capacity. South Sudan is also insights on actors operating in refugee
one of the world’s most politically fragile The World Bank is providing technical settings with the goal of strengthening
countries. Repeated extreme flooding assistance to strengthen the MWRI effectiveness and inclusiveness of the
from 2020 through today has and local WRM capacity. CIWA’s interventions in forced displacement
submerged an area larger than activity, launched in June 2023, is a contexts. In addition, the team began one
Denmark, affecting 1 million people. Ten Bank-executed grant to support the of the key activities on building climate
percent of the country's arable land has South Sudan component of the RCRP resilience and strengthening water
become swampland at a time when by facilitating South Sudan’s priorities and investments for vulnerable
over 7 million people are food insecure. participation in Nile River Basin groups, a technical assistance on
The 2024 INFORM Index noted that dialogue, strengthening technical climate-related water risks and
South Sudan’s vulnerability is tightly capacity, and contributing to the interventions for refugees and host
linked to its lack of infrastructure and National Master Plan being developed communities. Climate impacts
very low capacity of WRM institutions. under the RCRP. This technical exacerbate the vulnerability of refugees
Women who have been forced to flee assistance seeks to deepen dialogue and host communities, primarily because
from their homes and now live in and strengthen knowledge for they experience greater exposure to
displacement camps face multiple sustainable planning and management extreme weather events, have severely
challenges, and several factors including of transboundary water resources to limited adaptive capacity to changing
floods and drought make it difficult for increase water security by environmental conditions, and rely
them to see a doctor even when they are (i) supporting transboundary water significantly on natural resources. This
pregnant. Women are also exposed to management and water resources technical assistance will deliver a
harassment or sexual violence and planning, (ii) strengthening regional mapping report of key actors in this
constant physical stress from information exchange, and space, which will include guidance on how
transporting water over long distances. (iii) supporting knowledge generation to improve coordination, fill gaps, and
and capacity building with a focus on leverage synergies among stakeholders.
South Sudan’s water-related risks biodiversity and FCV, which includes An infrastructure inventory of WRM
and opportunities are fundamentally the integration of a gender lens into assets and their vulnerability to
transboundary in nature, as the Nile project design and implementation. climate-related conditions will be
Basin contains all the country’s developed, leading to a multicriteria
surface and groundwater resources. The initiative is providing technical analysis that prioritizes future
Upstream conditions, therefore, assistance to the MWRI on investments for flood and water
influence water availability and the transboundary water cooperation and management.
occurrence of floods and droughts. management and conducting analytical
activities to map and quantify the Strengthening regional information
While the country’s nascent water hydrological ecosystem services exchange: The hydrometric monitoring
management institutions are provided by the Sudd wetland. It also network, which includes five operational
working to address many challenges, supports South Sudan’s efforts to learn hydrometric stations, is extremely weak.
they face severe constraints. Draft from international best practices for These stations are manually operated, are
water legislation has been pending transboundary water management, not set up for automatic data transmission
since 2013. The Ministry of Water including from the Convention on the mechanisms via telemetry, and do not
Resources and Irrigation (MWRI) lacks Protection and Use of Transboundary have a systematic data management tool
capacity and has limited physical Watercourses and International Lakes. to store and process data.

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