South Sudan: Humanitarian Situation

(asked on 10th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the humanitarian situation in South Sudan; by how much UK aid to South Sudan will be cut as part of the reduction in the Official Development Assistance budget; how any such cut will represent value to UK taxpayers; and whether the details of any such cuts have been provided to the government of South Sudan.


This question was answered on 24th June 2021

According to figures released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 8.3 million people in South Sudan are in need of humanitarian assistance. An estimated 7.2 million face high levels of acute food insecurity (including over 100,000 in famine-like conditions), and 1.4 million children are expected to be acutely malnourished in 2021. The Minister for Africa, James Duddridge, witnessed the dire humanitarian situation first hand when he visited South Sudan with the UK Special Envoy for Famine and Humanitarian Affairs in October 2020.

We remain in regular contact with the Government of South Sudan and implementing partners on our assistance programme and any impacts of reductions in ODA. While we are still working through what the reduction to UK ODA means for individual programmes, our aid budget will be allocated according to the UK's strategic ODA priorities: global health security, girls' education, humanitarian preparedness and response, open societies, and conflict resolution.

Reticulating Splines