Support To Hosting Communities Affected By South Sudanese Refugees In White Nile State, Sudan

UN-Habitat is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities and to help the urban poor with better opportunities and where everyone can live in dignity. Historically, UN-Habitat’s programmes and projects have been designed to provide adequate shelter and living condition for all, particularly to those who are in poor and/or in emergency condition. UN-Habitat Sudan has been working on humanitarian, peace building and development assistance for the Government of Sudan under the coordination of Sudan United Nations Country Team (UNCT) and Humanitarian Coordination Team (HCT) to assist bridging humanitarian response and development support in line with the principle of Humanitarian, Peace Building and Development Nexus.  Most of the humanitarian operations in Sudan aim to provide only short-term emergency support, which need to be followed by mid-term, more sustainable solutions that UN-Habitats can provide through its expertise on supporting shelter and living condition.  In addition, UN-Habitat Sudan has comparative advantage to provide technical and substantive support on comprehensive and strategic planning and managing living condition through spatial planning including basic services and public facilities such as public spaces, parks and market places.In line with UN-Habitat Strategic Plan 2014-2019, the project has a strong linkage to urban basic services as focus area 4, and will contribute to the implementation of policies for increasing equitable access to urban basic services and improving the standard of living of the urban poor. In addition, the project will achieve sustainable development and urban safety related to focus area 1 urban legislation, land and governance and focus area 2 urban planning and design. The project will also generate job opportunities and contribute to livelihoods that indirectly apply focus area 3 urban economy. Based on its experiences and technical expertise, UN-Habitat can support mitigating risk of conflicts, to prevent wide spread of diseases and to achieve better access to livelihood and employment opportunities among South Sudanese refugees and the hosting communities in cooperation with other international agencies and local NGOs. Globally, UN-Habitat is mandated to lead implementation of SDG 11 “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” that are interlinked among the other SDGs; and the project will directly contribute to the achievement of SDG 11 in Sudan. The Government of Sudan has been working toward the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs with considering the country’s specific context and the project will also fully in line with the proposed strategic priorities of SDG in Sudan.  In the past, UN-Habitat Sudan has experience of implementation of the projects funded by the Government of Japan including the project of Japan Supplementary Fund on “Emergency Flood Response in Khartoum for Vulnerable Communities” under the highly emergency circumstance.  In the project, UN-Habitat Sudan achieved strengthening government and community capacities to conduct emergency self-help construction of public facilities and necessary infrastructure through adaptation and implementation of resilient to floods urban planning and building techniques. Over 170,000 people benefited from the project interventions in terms of accessibility, protection against flood, access to basic services and capacity building. Gender aspects were also strongly considered in the planning and implementation and accessibility of facilities. Environmental-friendly construction technology including Stabilized Soil Block (SSB) was introduced, applied and disseminated among affected communities. The key following intervention had delivered through the emergency response project conducted by UN-Habitat Sudan: • Health facility and Youth Centre had been constructed by using stabilized soil block (SSB) as environment friendly technology and flood resistance. The two facilities served for the 7,000 people; • More than 400 unemployed youth trained on SSB production and construction technology; and • 12 SSB manual machines has been delivered out of which 6 are being used by Ministry of Infrastructure in Khartoum state to promote the technology to build drainage systems in collaboration with the community in the affected areas. Through the implementation of the past projects funded by the Government of Japan, effectiveness and efficiency of “self-helped” and “self-reliance” approaches were broadly introduced and in Sudan that brought out of efforts not only the governments but conflict/disaster affected people. In addition, UN-Habitat will assign the deputy head of UN-Habitat Sudan who has experience on developing and implementing Japan’s Supplementary Fund in Iraq who can utilize the substantive knowledge, skills and communication required for the implementation of emergency projects funded by the Government of Japan.