Jonglei agriculture minister calls for more US funding
October 24, 14 (BOR) – The agriculture minister in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, Mayen Ngor has urged the United States government to maintain its emergency and development funding to the region.
Funding for CRS and SCI, implementer’s of the US aid arm’s (USAID) food security program in Jonglei since 2011, will end early next year.
Initially a developmental project that targeted farmers, the food security program introduced modern skills of planting, weeding, storage, providing market linkages to them. The communities were also engaged to identify the risk and disasters and draw relevant solutions to help them build resilience, using food for asset approach.
The project, however, changed into an emergency one following the outbreak of conflict in the country’s largest state late last year.
“[The] American people should not leave like this. We are not yet clean. We started with development and are now ending with emergency”, said Ngor.
“More than 29% of the people are still food insecure. As government, we have no means to bridge the gap alone, there is great food deficit”, he added.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and CRS partnership has worked in northern Jonglei where hundreds of people in rebel-controlled areas received food supply in October.
Food was air dropped by WFP and distributed by the CRS team on the ground.
The minister vowed to mobilise communities to go for dry season farming in Bor, Twic East, Ayod, Akobo, Pibor and Pochalla as a mechanism to the prevent the looming hunger expected in 2015.
(ST).