Emergency Livelihood based responses to food insecure communities in Aweil East The proposed project aims at providing immediate life-saving and short-term food and income access to crisis affected communities in Aweil East County, Northern Bahr El Ghazal State (NBeG). The project will strengthen household-level food security and resilient livelihoods, directly reaching 6,697 households (40,182 people) of mixed populations (including IDPs, returnees and host communities) with the distribution of vegetable and fishing kits. Beneficiaries will be selected in consultation with Boma Project Management committees and also Accountability for Affected Populations committees (AAP) where existing, which will help avoiding duplications. The overall goal of the project is to reduce the vulnerability of beneficiaries to food insecurity hence contributing to the decrease of malnutrition. In order to realize this goal, Save the Children (SCI) needs a total of $180,000 for a period of six months (10 September 2019 to 09 March 2020). 

Each household will receive one vegetable kit, containing six to seven types of seeds suitable for dry season farming. Households with access to perennial rivers, ponds or swamps with high potential for fishing will also receive one fishing kit. With this combined interventions, the assistance will enable the beneficiaries to have access to a diversified diet which contains freshly grown vegetables and a common source of protein (fish). SCI will complement the distributions with trainings on farming practices, crop managements, pest control and post-harvest storage. In alignment to the multi-sector intervention strategy, the field teams will include key nutrition messaging thus raising awareness on the importance of nutrient rich food consumption. This modality will most likely result in decreased levels of malnutrition among the beneficiaries.

The proposed project will complement numerous ongoing interventions by Save the Children and other humanitarian actors in Aweil East. One of these projects is the “Emergency Livelihood Responses to food insecure and conflict affected communities in Aweil East”, funded by SSHF during the First Standard Allocation in 2019. This new project would ensure continuation and scale-up of current efforts on ground.

Although Aweil East has been prioritized by the FSL Cluster in previous allocation, recent reports dictate that the needs are still severe in the area. According to the IPC Acute Food Insecurity amp Acute Malnutrition Analysis May 2019, the county falls under IPC 4 category which indicates an emergency situation. The protracted conflict and recurring displacements have prevented the communities of Aweil East from year-to-year farming practices which has led to 20,490 metric tonnes (33%) cereal deficit (CFSAM Feb 2019) and high levels of malnutrition.

Therefore, Save the Children proposes this project in response to the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan FSL Cluster Objective 2 to save the lives of the most vulnerable communities in Aweil East by the distribution of emergency vegetable and fishing kits and provision of trainings in improving their farming practices for increased productions and c