FAO South Sudan works to assist the government in developing policies, programmes, and projects to achieve food security and reduce hunger and malnutrition, to help develop the agricultural, livestock, fisheries, and forestry sectors, and to use their environmental and natural resources sustainably.

FAO is the lead agency in the UN system for agriculture and food security in South Sudan and plays a crucial role in coordinating country-wide efforts to restore productive capacity and is heavily involved in disaster risk management. Protecting and promoting resilient livelihoods is central to FAO’s work. The organization’s resilience work is grounded in a country-tailored strategy that recognizes the need to move vulnerable populations beyond humanitarian support to start their journey to achieve greater resilience. This approach is multi-sectoral and encompasses all aspects along the agriculture value chain for crops, livestock, fisheries, forestry, and natural resource management, as well as climate resilience.

FAO South Sudan interventions consider cross-cutting areas including improving opportunities for women and youth in agriculture, partnership and programmatic approaches that contribute to the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus, institutional capacity building, nutrition mainstreaming, implementation of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, conflict mitigation and peacebuilding through investment and capacity development on Natural Resource Management and Environmental and Social Safeguards.

Key programmes that stand out in FAO work in South Sudan include countrywide construction of water and other infrastructure, livestock vaccination, distribution of seeds and farming implements, and training of farmers. The cash-voucher-based programming is another programme that continues to significantly empower vulnerable communities through seed distribution and distribution of small ruminants to help farmers restock, while allowing communities to embark on work to develop their areas and receive cash as compensation.

The current portfolio of projects in South Sudan is implemented using humanitarian, transitional, and development funding. FAO is active in nine of the ten states of South Sudan, with its main office in Juba and an extensive field presence through a network of nine field offices.