Nutrition-focused Hunger Crisis Response in South Sudan and Tigray Region in Ethiopia

2022 - Much of the world is presently facing a food crisis compounded by conflict climate change and the residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. FAO’s global food price index reached another record high in March 2022 increasing by 34% over the same time last year. Entrenched conflict and the cumulative impact of climate changes (back-to-back natural disasters major droughts locusts multi-year landscape-changing floods etc.) combined to increase global acute food insecurity by 84% from 150 million people in 2019 to 276 million in 2022. Prior to the Ukraine crisis a global group of nutrition experts estimated that 13.6 million more children would suffer from wasting by 2022 a 30% increase over three years. With GAC’s support this project works to increase access to curative and preventive quality emergency health and nutrition services to prevent identify & treat acutely malnourished children under five years and pregnant and lactating women while mitigating poor health outcomes. Project activities include: (1) providing quality outpatient therapeutic feeding programs to treat and manage Severe Acute Malnutrition in children under-five and pregnant and lactating women including malnourished other cases; (2) equipping Primary Health Care Centres and Primary Health Workers to delivery Community based Management of Acute Malnutrition services; (3) establishing community nutrition screening community mobilization and referral systems; and (4) establishing community-based protection mechanisms for women girls and boys at risk of sexual and gender based violence.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) Increased equitable access for girls boys women and men to essential emergency gender-responsive health care protection and nutrition services; (2) Improved access to essential gender responsive life-saving water and sanitation services; and (3) Improved nutrition intake through context-appropriate and gender-responsive emergency food security and livelihoods interventions. The ultimate outcome for this project is reduced vulnerability increased and maintained human dignity (especially for women and girls) and vulnerable lives saved of displaced populations affected by the hunger crisis in Ethiopia and South Sudan.