South Sudan Joint Response 8 (SSJR8) in Malakal and Melut - Project SUMMARY: 
The SSJR Alliance with Save the Children (lead), Plan International, War Child Holland, Tearfund, CARE, Stichting Red een Kind, Dorcas Aid International implements from 1.1.2022 - 31.12.2023 in Pibor, Koch, Tonj North, Wau, Melut, Aweil East, Malakal, Jur River, Lainya and Tonj East. The following 8 South Sudanese organizations will continue to be part of the JR: ACROSS, CEF, CEDS, WDG, MHA, UNIDOR, WOCO and SAADO.
Plan International Nederland will implement its project in Malakal and Melut together with SAADO, continues to respond to increasing protection concerns, and will help to reach more vulnerable HHs with FSL supports and MPC assistance to address severe food insecurity reported. Plan will reach 23.982 vulnerable people. According to the 2021 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO), some 8.3 million people in South Sudan are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance, with communities hit hard by the triple shock of intensified conflict and sub-national violence, three consecutive years of major flooding, and the impact of COVID-19. Over 70% of the population in Upper Nile state were in IPC phase 3 & 4 between April- July 2021 with more vulnerable households still facing food shortage. Lack of food for many households resulted in significant movements of people to other counties in search of food distributed to returnees.  In the frame of the 8th phase of the South Sudan Joint Response, Plan International will focus its response in Malakal and Melut counties in Upper Nile State on an integrated FSL, Protection response using the Cash modality. The project will be closed in Malakal county at the end of its implementation duration and will be transitioned to a local partner SAADO by end of 2022. Particularly, Plan and partners will work on preventing and protecting the communities against gender-based violence as well as provide multipurpose cash to vulnerable households. The SSJR program will continue to provide life-saving assistance and aim to enhance the transition from humanitarian assistance to resilience programming, addressing root causes, enabling vulnerable and at-risk communities to build resilience to acute shocks and chronic stresses, and recover from crisis. Lastly, the SSJR program will continue to address critical problems relating to physical and mental wellbeing, strongly reinforcing protection throughout the program, both integrated within other sectors, and as a separate sector.

Plan continues to respond to an increasing protection concerns and will scale up GBV, CP, PSS and case management interventions to support additional children affected by sexual health and protection concerns in Malakal and Melut. It will help to reach more vulnerable HHs with FSL supports and MPC assistance to address sever food insecurity reported in Malakal and Melut. The SSJR8 is a continuation of the South Sudan program funded by the Dutch Relief Alliance. The target group for the SSJR 2022-2023 will continue to target the most vulnerable households amongst IDPS, returnees and host communities, with a particular focus on child-headed households, female headed households, PLW, elderly, households with children facing SAM/MAM, malnourished children, youth, vulnerable adolescent boys and girls. The SSJR 2022-2023 program will provide life-saving assistance and aim to enhance the transition from humanitarian assistance to resilience programming by addressing root causes of vulnerability and enabling communities at risk to build resilience to acute shocks and chronic stresses and recover from crisis. Lastly, the SSJR program will continue to address critical problems relating to physical and mental wellbeing, strongly reinforcing protection throughout the program, both integrated within other sectors, and as a separate sector.

The SSJR 2022-2023 will continue to contribute to all 2021 HRP strategic objectives:

• Reduce morbidity and mortality, as well as suffering from protection threats and incidents;
• Ensure safe, equitable and dignified access to critical cross sectoral basic services to enable populations to meet their basic needs;
• Enable people with vulnerabilities to recover from crisis, seek solutions to displacement in respect of their rights, and build resilience to shocks and stresses.

Plan Internatinal will provide agricultural inputs to a total of 800HHs (4800 individuals) through in kind distributions in Melut. This will be accompanied by training of 1 pers/ HH (total of 100 HHs) on sustainable agro-practices and climate smart agriculture (3 days in total) and mentoring /technical support, using demo-plots. (over 60% of HH with female headed households will be supported). These HH will also receive value vouchers to protect livelihood assets.
15400 individuals will be reached with protection activities. This includes the dissemination of protection information. In Malakal and Melut County, community awareness raising will be done and celebration of events such as International Youth Day and International Day of the Girl and the international women's day and the 16 days of activitism organised reaching 5400 individuals. Moreover, outreach activities and peer to peer awareness raising will be conducted by 11 Adolescent Clubs and 4 Youth Clubs reaching 9800 adolescents and youth in Malakal and Melut County.
Capacity building on protection issues (adolescent development, MHM, gender equality, prevention of GBV, PSEA) will be provided to 660 individuals, including 150 teachers and other educational personal, traditional/religious leaders and other infuelntial community members, service providers and line ministries (Ministry of Gender and social welfare, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Police).                                                                                                                                                                             Every year, 11 Adolescents clubs (AC) and 4 youth Clubs (YC) members (300 individuals) will be trained and coached on basis GBV, SRHR, Gender Equality, dialoguing and awareness raising methods as well as on their roles and responsibilities and they will be engaged in GBV safety audits and Risk and Resources mapping. 
50 adolescent mothers will be trained on positive parenting, basics of GBV, mainstream Hygiene and SHRH each year. 
310 adolescent girls at risk of GBV will be sensitized on GBV and MHM and provided with dignity kits to protect them from GBV, along with 5 matrons in school. 155 adolescent girls will be targeted in 1st year in both locations and 155 in second year in Melut.
Support will be provided to 800 Youth Unions to perform group activities for child and youth well-being, especially sports. 400 in year 1 in both locations (200 each) and 400 youths in Melut.
1200 individuals of most vulnerable households will be reached with unconditioal cash in Malakal and Melut. Beneficiaries under the Protection activities that meet the criteria will also be referred to these services.
Another 2400 individuals will be reached through cash for work. Plan International will continue to strengthen the capacities of their local partners as part of the ongoing project through training and on the job support. 
Localization efforts in 2022 - 2023 will include additional activities to ensure that as a SSJR, we contribute to ensuring we amplify voices of South Sudan. 35% of the budget will be managed by SAADO. Joint coordination budget will be used to improve visibility of local partners and make it a priority to improve it nationally and internationally, and budget has also been reserved to ensure our partners are able to participate in regional and/or global meetings and discussions related to localization, and to ensure that they are able to share experiences and learning at these engagements.