Improving Food Security, Protecting Local Livelihoods, and Strengthening Pest Control Systems in South Sudan

Challenge

Desert locust (DL) is the most destructive migratory agricultural pest in the world. A small swarm can comprise up to 80 million locusts and can consume as much food in one day as 35,000 people. The DL upsurge that impacted South Sudan, beginning in April of 2020, was driven by a combination of climate change and conflict. Two cyclones hit the Arabian Peninsula in 2018, which, together with conflict in Yemen and Somalia, prevented effective swarm control. By April 2020, 23 countries were affected. Swarms reached South Sudan in March 2020, damaging over 20,000 hectares of crops; insecurity and COVID-19 restrictions prevented a full damage assessment. Additionally, South Sudan relied on food imports from neighboring countries such as Uganda, Kenya, and Sudan, which also suffered significant damage from the DL and saw reduced food supplies. Bilateral donors and the United Nations (UN) provided emergency support to control swarms, but support for recovery, already stretched by pre-existing humanitarian crisis, with over 60 percent of South Sudan’s population already severely food insecure, was limited.

Approach

ELRP responded to the threat posed by the locust outbreak, while working to restore food security, and strengthen systems for preparedness for response plans. ELRP funds built capacity for surveillance and control, but more importantly, supported food security for the most vulnerable households and helped communities restore crop and livestock production using ecologically friendly approaches. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) was brought on board to enhance coordination and cooperation for pest management at the regional and national levels.

As desert locust is a destructive transboundary pest, swarm surveillance and control are critical elements to provide early warning to avoid the spread and devise response mechanisms. In addition, ELRP has contributed to the government of South Sudan’s strategic priority to improve food security and resilience.

Given the threat to food security, ELRP is, at its core, a project with a mix of investments that aimed at reducing food insecurity and chronic malnutrition at the national level while supporting a coordinated regional response to the biggest threat to food security in the Greater Horn of Africa at that time. It enabled all affected countries to mount a response simultaneously—locusts don’t need passports—so that the threat could be monitored, controlled and eliminated. Ultimately, more funds have gone to restore affected communities, local livelihoods, farms, and pastures, and to build national and regional capacity to react early and effectively to future threats. The project’s approach comprises a three-pronged strategy to improve food security and strengthen preparedness at regional and national levels.   

Results

ELRP helped the the government of South Sudan to strengthen the country’s capacity to manage future food security crises by establishing a Food Security Council and preparing a Food Security Crisis Preparedness Plan (FSCPP). The FSCPP was approved by the Council of Ministers and as of July, 2024, is awaiting presidential decree for implementation. The FSCPP brings together technical programmatic leads across government, humanitarian, and development partners, and set forth protocols for convening senior officials to collectively recognize crises and to bridge operational and funding gaps through well-coordinated and holistic responses. 

Between August 2022 and February 2024, ELRP provided support for people in South Sudan directly affected by the locust swarms, while also working to build capacity to protect against future swarms. The project strengthened South Sudan's surveillance and monitoring systems by training a total of 200 state and county officials (22 percent women) on pest surveillance in nine counties. Moreover, 14 (11 male, three female) national task force members were trained in pest surveillance. ELRP supported surveying of nearly 27,000  hectares (Ha) of farmland affected by locust and other pests, and provision of emergency fodder for 7,546 affected livestock-holding households out of whom twenty percent are female-headed households and 6,037 male) received emergency fodder. In addition, 305 Ha of affected pasture and rangeland area were restored.

ELRP supported nearly 24,000 (80 percent female) households with direct income support and up to 22,000 (62 percent female) households with able-bodied members through Labor-Intensive Public Works (LIPW). The beneficiary households were from counties affected by the locust or by other invasive species. A range of LIPW sub-projects were established, with 166 LIPWs contributing to building community assets, such as community access roads, community tree nursery establishment, tree seedlings, invasive weed control, block making, establishment of dikes, digging water canals, and school repair and construction. These sub-projects achieved the following results: 56 community and central tree nurseries were established in all the project locations and produced over 463,000 seedlings of various tree species and fruit trees; 79 kilometers (km) of dikes and water channels, and 73 km of community access roads were completed; over 500,000 bricks were produced for school classrooms and health centers.  

Bank Group Contribution

The ELRP includes three phases with a total financial commitment of $375.7 million, supporting five countries and one regional organization. The South Sudan project (Phase 3) comprises a $50.7 million grant from the International Development Association ($13.2 million) and from the Crisis Response Window Early Response Financing ($37.5 million) to South Sudan and a $3.0 million grant to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

Partners

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, which is implementing the ELRP, contracted the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) to implement direct income support activities, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to implement the rest of the project. FAO is at the forefront of supporting the government to fight food insecurity and having the agency as an implementing agency is an advantage because of its presence around the country and its logistical capacity to reach the most difficult areas.

IGAD’s Climate Prediction and Application Center (ICPAC) manages a platform to coordinate transboundary pest response among its member states and other key stakeholders, including the Desert Locust Control Organization of East Africa (DLCO-EA), Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), FAO, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG), and bilateral agencies, including the Agence Française de Développement, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the United Kingdom, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The partnership with ESA has focused on two fronts. First, ESA is using earth observation (EO) data to assess damage from desert locust swarms, which is notoriously difficult given that swarms behave like tornadoes (moving in a targeted swirling cone) quickly destroying all forms of vegetation and crops over large areas. Second, ESA is using EO-plus data, such as the soil wetness index, normalized difference vegetation index, sand percentage, elevation, and land surface temperature, to predict new areas that could be conducive to future desert locust breeding given the changing climate. IGAD is working to expand this data partnership to facilitate surveillance and analysis of broader trends in the food system, which will benefit South Sudan as a member state of ICPAC.

Looking Ahead

At the national level, improved surveillance capacity, increased preparedness through membership in the regional platform, and investments in services like community nurseries will continue to serve the people of South Sudan. The surveillance capacity can be applied to other pests that threaten the food supply like the quealea bird, tree locust, African migratory locust, African Armyworm, Fall Armyworm, and tse tse fly. ELRP is also assisting the country to develop a FSCPP to anticipate drivers of food insecurity and help the government and the development community coordinate and respond more effectively to future crises.

Against the backdrop of climate change, the project has highlighted the importance of preparedness for pest control for food security. Early warning and preparedness experience has shown that many investment and job creation opportunities can be catalyzed by moving toward crisis prevention mode, including through policy and regulatory reforms, research partnerships, and opportunities for the private sector in trade, manufacturing, and services, which are all needed to control transboundary pests. Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to coordinate their efforts for pest management, endorsing protocols for transboundary pest control, prepared by IGAD.  A review of the policies and regulations to support effective response at national and regional (cross-border) levels to facilitate synchronized management of transboundary pests, including desert locust is underway. Guidelines to harmonize registration of biopesticides in IGAD member countries have been prepared and endorsed by Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

IGAD, which manages the transboundary pest platform to coordinate preparedness and response among its member states, is playing an important role in raising awareness on pest management. The platform is working with the European Space Agency on the use of machine learning to maximize the use of satellite data and remote sensing to predict future breeding sites of desert locust and to measure the damage from desert locust swarms, which will be expanded to other transboundary pests over time.