South Sudan Resilient Livestock Sector Project

active

Prospective

Livestock plays an essential role in the food system and rural livelihood of South Sudan, serving as a significant social and economic asset. It contributes to food security and provides resources such as meat, milk, cash income, clothing, employment, and capital stock, and it also represents social status. Land cultivation and livestock rearing are the primary livelihood activities for many households, with approximately 81 percent cultivating land and 74 percent owning livestock. The country's livestock is valued at around 2.2 billion dollars with the livestock population at roughly 38.4 million animals, including 11.8 million cattle, 14 million goats, and 12.6 million sheep . Livestock Production predominantly occurs in arid- and semi-arid zones like Eastern Equatoria and the greater Barh el Ghazal regions. Animals are important assets for agro-pastoral communities, often sold for cash or bartered for goods despite slow growth of cross border trade in livestock being hampered by the current civil war in Sudan.Despite its magnitude and significance, the South Sudanese livestock sector does not meet its potential on food security, nutrition, and livelihoods. The sector has immense potential to increase food security and reduce malnutrition, employ a large segment of the population and foster income and national GDP growth. However, due to the long neglect and low investment in the livestock sector , sectoral development gaps are huge. Prevalence of livestock diseases and related animal health challenges and the severe erosion of rangelands and water resources preclude the sector from reaching a productivity level to enhance commercial opportunities around livestock value chains.The development of the livestock sector as a sustained source of food security and decent livelihood is structurally constrained by interlinked challenges. Main challenges are intrinsic to livestock development: poor animal health and high prevalence of diseases compounded by eroded rangelands lead to minimal productivity. Cross-cutting, foundational issues related to gender inequality, fragility and conflict, and institutional misalignments amplify the sectoral difficulties. Beyond economic growth, investing in agriculture is about resilience; resilience to climate change, resilience to market shocks, and resilience in ensuring that communities have access to nutritious food. Therefore, the sustainable development of the livestock sector hinges on solutions that address the technical issues while mainstreaming cross-cutting issues. The main challenges that the project will tackle are: (i) South Sudan suffers from chronic food insecurity and high level of malnutrition despite a large livestock population that is not productive because of poor animal heath, that causes also human health security and precarious livelihoods; (ii) high vulnerability of the livestock sector to climate change’s impact over water and fodder availability which threatens the livelihoods of pastoral and agro-pastoral communities that are relying on these rangelands for grazing and food; (iii) weak governance and regulatory frameworks characterized by inadequate human resource, insufficient budgets and the absence of a robust regulatory framework make access to and competition over natural resources cause unregulated movement of livestock and the spread of zoonotic diseases; (iv) limited participation of women while they are primarily responsible for animal care, including health monitoring and milking, alongside their duties of managing household responsibilities in the livestock sector is a big hindrance to the development of the sector; and (v) South Sudan is one of the most fragile countries in the world and is exposed to multiple risks of fragility, conflict, and violence that are affecting the livestock sector.The proposed project will address these challenges by supporting the government to invest in (i) animal health to enhance the health and thus the production and productivity of the animals through the provision of technical assistance and vaccines, (ii) improved natural rangeland management, resilient livestock production and adoption of enabling livestock policy bills to facilitate an integrated sector.

World Bank Group

Project

Water Supply and Storage, Manufacturing (Industrial), Raw Materials, Government, Commercial