Category: General

This regular update, covering humanitarian developments from 1 and 28 February, is produced by OCHA Sudan. The next humanitarian update will be issued in March 2022

HIGHLIGHTS

• More than 18 million people are likely to be affected by localized dry spells and crop failure, conflict and the economic crisis and need urgent humanitarian assistance.

• The total production of main cereal crops (sorghum, millet and wheat) in 2021/22 is estimated at 5 million tonnes. This is 30 per cent lower than the previous five-year average and 35 per cent below last year’s production (FAO).

• There has been an increase in the number of requests issued by some state authorities for incentives and fees to be paid by humanitarian organizations.

• Insecurity affecting access to affected people in some parts of Darfur.

SITUATION OVERVIEW

Sudan continues to face a macroeconomic crisis. Continued increases in the prices of food and transportation and the local food basket are expected to continue impacting the purchasing power of poor households and likely drive an increase in the inflation rate, according to FEWS NET. The political crisis during the reporting period severely impacted the Sudanese economy, with challenges in exports and imports, blockades of national routes and deteriorating conditions disrupting market systems and food value chains. These factors continued to have a negative impact on people in need in February.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP) Consolidated Approach to Reporting Indicators of Food Security (CARI), the forecasted scenario indicates that 33 per cent of the general population are food insecure during the first quarter of 2022, and 39 per cent will be food insecure by the third quarter. According to FAO, the performance of the 2021/22 agricultural season is poor. FAO estimate that. 5.6 million people are affected by the dry spells in addition to the 9.8 million people that are food insecure due to the current economic crisis, as well as fuel and price hikes. In most states, the rain level in the current season is below the level of the previous season with long dry spells expected in July in all cropping areas, with localized dry spells in August and September negatively affecting crop growth. The dry spell and the subsequent crop failure have affected over 5.6 million people in Blue Nile, Central Darfur, East Darfur, East Darfur, Gedaref, Kassala, North Darfur, North Kordofan, Red Sea, Sennar, South Darfur, South Kordofan, West Darfur, and White Nile. More than 22 million people (50 per cent of Sudan’s population) live in the 115 dry spell-affected localities.

During the month there have been reports of the return of Sudanese refugees from Ethiopia to Al Kurmuk, Blue Nile, following military advancements into the Tongo refugee camp in Ethiopia. Since the beginning of February, an estimated 739 Sudanese nationals have reportedly returned to Sudan through different entry points in Al Kurmuk locality. The official border crossing remains closed. A joint team from the Humanitarian Affairs Commission (HAC), Commissioner for Refugees (COR) and UNHCR went to Al Kurmuk to register the returnees. While UNHCR teams go on mission, COR has had staff on the ground registering the returnees since mid-February. Al Kurmuk has an endemic water problem, and as more returnees arrive the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) needs will need to be addressed by humanitarian partners.

UNHCR has built two temporary toilets at the transit centre, but more are needed. The water supply also needs to be improved to be able to supply increasing demands.

In 2022, humanitarian partners aim to provide humanitarian assistance and support to 10.9 million of the most vulnerable people at the cost of US$1.9 billion. As of 10 March, thanks to several donor partners, the 2022 Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) received $148.6 million, which is 7.6 per cent of the requirement.

Humanitarian organizations in Sudan advocate for early and expedient funding for humanitarian operations as conflict, the economic crisis, inflation, food insecurity and other challenges increase the needs of vulnerable people.

In this regard the European Commission (EC) on 20 February announced the allocation of €40 million (US$45.46 million) for humanitarian assistance to Sudan as part of the €294.2 million ($334.36 million) humanitarian funding to assist vulnerable populations in East and Southern Africa in 2022.

Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

DOHA, 26 March 2022 – Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) announced an $8 million contribution to UNICEF today, in an agreement signed by Director General HE Mr. Khalifa Jassim Al-Kuwari and UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, in the margins of the Doha Forum.

The contribution will go towards UNICEF’s core funding for 2022-2023 and will not be earmarked for specific programmes, which will allow UNICEF to direct them where the need is greatest. This helps achieve the most significant long-term impact for children, and quickly fill in life-threatening gaps in emergencies.

HE Mr. Khalifa Jassim Al-Kuwari, Director General of QFFD said: “The strategic partnership between QFFD and UNICEF is considered one of the most important partnerships to change the lives of millions of children, especially in countries in most need for fundamental support. These agreements confirm with QFFD’s dedication in supporting the health and well-being of children at risk around the world.”

“With flexible funding, UNICEF can allocate resources where they’re needed the most,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director. “I commend Qatar for believing in the importance of funding predictability and helping us make sure that no child in need is forgotten.”

The QFFD contribution to core funding is a significant step in advancing its longstanding partnership with UNICEF and complements generous support for children in emergencies. Since 2017, contributions from QFFD have been vital for UNICEF’s response to various diseases including the cholera outbreak in Yemen. In addition, in 2018, UNICEF partnered with QFFD to rehabilitate water and sanitation infrastructure in Yemen and Iraq. Previously in 2019, QFFD signed a core contribution to support the resources of UNICEF and help save the lives of children and their families.

Source: UN Children’s Fund

To mark the conclusion of the 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and UN Women announced a partnership for ‘Investing in Adolescent Girls and Young Women’s Leadership and Voice in the HIV Response’. The United States government is investing over USD 670,000 for the 12-month partnership, which focuses on elevating the voices of adolescent girls and young women in Sub-Saharan Africa to demand non-discriminatory access to HIV services.

The partnership will provide adolescent girls and young women in 15 sub-Saharan African countries with support to strengthen their leadership and advocacy skills, in part, through mentorship and engagement with established women leaders. By amplifying the voices of a diverse set of emerging and established women leaders, the program will help to shape critical policy for improved access to HIV services for girls and women. It will also strive to create enabling environments for young women to realize their rights and access HIV information and services.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 years accounted for 25 pe rcent of HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 despite representing just 10 per cent of the population. In this region, young women are twice as likely to be living with HIV than young men. The disproportionate impact of HIV on girls and women correlates with the structural barriers they often face in their daily lives, such as gender-based violence, harmful gender norms, and inequitable access to education and economic opportunities.

“The United States is proud to champion gender equity and to elevate the voices of women and girls in all their diversity,” said Dr. Angeli Achrekar, Acting U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy. “In every country, women, girls, and the LGBTQI+ community experience specific challenges that hold them back from full and meaningful participation in society, including access to essential HIV services. We must work smarter and harder to ensure that all people, regardless of their gender identity or expression, can achieve their full potential.”

“Due to persistent unequal gender norms, adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa face an unprecedented HIV crisis,” said Åsa Regnér, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women. “We must invest in the leadership of young women and girls, including those living with and affected by HIV, and ensure an enabling environment for them to seek life-saving services. We welcome this partnership with the United States, which we strongly believe will galvanize leaders to implement long lasting policies so that women and girls can fully exercise their rights.”

The new partnership will engage young women leaders from PEPFAR’s Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe (DREAMS) public-private partnership; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and UN Women partners. The partnership will work in 15 countries across Eastern and Southern Africa (Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) where adolescent girls and young women experience some of the highest rates of HIV risk and infection globally.

Source: US Department of State

South Sudan and Sudan will resume talks over the formation of joint administration for the contested border Abyei area, the Sudan Tribune learnt on Friday.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and the head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council Gen Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, on March 18, agreed to foster joint cooperation in the border areas including Abyei and to encourage peaceful coexistence and share of common interests.

A high-profile presidential source told the Sudan Tribune that, al-Burhan during his recent visit to Juba proposed to President Kiir to form a joint administration in Abyei.

“This proposal, he said, is subject to further discussion within the leadership. And yes, we think this is a good proposal. We are talking to his Excellency the president to talk to the leadership to see whether a committee could be constituted to go to Khartoum and hold talks with Sudanese officials on the matter,” he said.

The senior official stressed that the formation of a joint administration brings many advantages to the border area including having a share of the oil produced in Abyei.

“The people of Abyei are not benefiting from the oil produced in their area since 2011 when the Sudanese army took control of the area”.

“So, when a joint administration is formed, the share of the oil for Abyei will be remitted and the people of Abyei will benefit from their oil. The joint administration will also provide services and provision of security in the area and protection of the local population,” he stressed.

In line with the CPA agreement which paved the way for the independence of South Sudan, the residents of the Abyei area have also to decide through a separate referendum on whether they want to remain in Sudan or to join South Sudan.

After, the clashes eruption of fighting in Abyei between the Sudanese army and the SPLA in May 2011, the Sudanese government and its peace partner the SPLM agreed on June 20, 2011, to form a joint Abyei Area Administration.

The Ngok Dinka, at the time, preferred not to form the joint administration as they are looking for a referendum to join an independent South Sudan within less than a month.

However, the disagreement on who is eligible to take part in this vote stopped the process.

The border area is the homeland of the Ngok Dinka, a tribal group with strong ethnic, cultural, and linguistic ties to the Dinka of South Sudan, and the Misseriya a northern nomadic Arab tribe who, in their majority, periodically come with their cattle to Abyei in search of water and pasture in the dry season and to trade goods.

Source: Sudan Tribune

The security services in Sudan’s South Darfur State suspended a Nyala theatre’s production of a play about the December revolution that overthrew former President al-Bashir.

The Interactive Theater Group of the Bishish Cultural Center in Nyala had planned the presentation of a play entitled “In the Days of Fear” at the El-Beheir Theater within the Nyala Theater Festival, which started last Tuesday.

A member of El-Beheir Theater told Sudan Tribune that a security force likely to be affiliated with the General Intelligence Service, “summoned the play’s director, Muammar Gaddafi, Muhyiddin, and asked him to moderate the content of the texts.

“So, they banned the play when he refused their request,” he added.

Since the coup of October 2021, General al-Burhan imposed the state of emergency, which gives security services broad powers enabling them to restrict freedoms.

After the start of the theatre festival in Nyala on March 22nd, the GIS personnel several times discussed the content of plays with the organizers because they deal with the new realities after the political changes in Sudan.

The security services event cut off electricity supply from the festival on the second day, according to the organizer who declined to be identified.

The Interactive Theater group organizes activities aiming to raise awareness about peace and democratic issues through theatre in various regions of Sudan.

Source: Sudan Tribune

WASHINGTON —

President Joe Biden intends to propose a spending plan for the 2023 budget year that would cut projected deficits by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, according to a fact sheet released Saturday by the White House budget office.

In his proposal, expected Monday, the lower deficits reflect the economy’s resurgence as the United States emerges from the pandemic, as well as likely tax law changes that would raise more than enough revenue to offset additional investments planned by the Biden administration. It’s a sign that the government’s balance sheet will improve after a historic burst of spending to combat the coronavirus.

The fading of the pandemic and the growth has enabled the deficit to fall from $3.1 trillion in fiscal 2020 to $2.8 trillion last year and a projected $1.4 trillion this year. That deficit spending paid off in the form of the economy expanding at a 5.7% pace last year, the strongest growth since 1984. But inflation at a 40-year high also accompanied those robust gains as high prices have weighed on Biden’s popularity.

For the Biden administration, the proposal for the budget year that begins October 1 shows that the burst of spending helped to fuel growth and put government finances in a more stable place for years to come as a result. One White House official, insisting on anonymity because the budget has yet to be released, said the proposal shows that Democrats can deliver on what Republicans have often promised without much success: faster growth and falling deficits.

Republicans focus on inflation

But Republican lawmakers contend that the Biden administration’s spending has led to greater economic pain in the form of higher prices. The inflation that came with reopening the U.S. economy as the closures from the pandemic began to end has been amplified by supply chain issues, low interest rates and, now, disruptions in the oil and natural gas markets because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky pinned the blame on Biden’s coronavirus relief as well as his push to move away from fossil fuels.

“Washington Democrats’ response to these hardships has been as misguided as the war on American energy and runaway spending that helped create them,” McConnell said last week. “The Biden administration seems to be willing to try anything but walking back their own disastrous economic policies.”

Biden inherited from the Trump administration a budget deficit that was equal in size to 14.9% of the entire U.S. economy. But the deficit starting in the upcoming budget year will be below 5% of the economy, putting the country on a more sustainable path, according to people familiar with the budget proposal who insisted on anonymity to discuss forthcoming details.

The planned deficit reduction is relative to current law, which assumes that some of the 2017 tax cuts signed into law by former President Donald Trump will expire after 2025. The lower deficit totals will also be easier to manage even if interest rates rise. Still, Biden’s is offering a blueprint for spending and taxes that will eventually be decided by Congress and could vary from the president’s intentions.

Economy expands

The expected deficit decrease for fiscal 2022 reflects the solid recovery in hiring that occurred in large part because of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. The added jobs mean additional tax revenue, with the government likely collecting $300 billion more in revenues compared to fiscal 2021, a 10% increase.

Still, the country will face several uncertainties that could reshape Biden’s proposed budget, which will have figures that don’t include the spending in the omnibus bill recently signed into law. Biden and U.S. allies are also providing aid to Ukrainians who are fighting against Russian forces, a war that could possibly reshape spending priorities and the broader economic outlook.

Source: Voice of America