Building resilience to weather and conflict shocks in South Sudan requires investing inside and outside the agriculture sector in order to promote sustainable livelihoods development and income diversification. This includes strengthening productive sectors, improving basic social services, and establishing productive safety nets. Establishing productive safety nets involves providing predictable income sources to vulnerable households through cash transfers, food transfers, or paid labour within a public works programme. Furthermore,
climate change adaptation should be an integral part of the conflict prevention and food-security strategies, partly because climate change is expected to significantly increase the likelihood of future conflict.
DFID South Sudan is preparing a business case for the second phase of the Building Resilience through Asset Creation and Enhancement (BRACE) Programme in South Sudan. This phase is expected to start in August 2015 in order that there will be a smooth transition from phase 1. Building on learning from phase 1, phase 2 will focus more on climate adaptation and conflict sensitivity. Resilience in South Sudan mainly revolves around
food security. Phase 1 was focused on food for assets, phase 2 is looking to scaling up cash for assets; but this will need to be handled in a sensitive way given risks in the operational context.
To this end, the Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI) was invited by Evidence on Demand to undertake a rapid desk-based study to provide evidence and examples to build resilient livelihoods in the South Sudan context.