Govt, partners to conduct crop failure assessment in Lakes State

The Government of Lakes State, in collaboration with the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) in Rumbek, on Thursday held a coordination meeting with humanitarian partners over looming hunger due to crop failure occasioned by prolonged drought across Lakes State.

The meeting, which discussed crop failure and a humanitarian needs assessment, was chaired by Deputy Governor Isaac Luka Munga and attended by RRC officials, UN agencies, national NGOs, civil society groups and government representatives.

“We need to take the step so that the partners and RRC will send the technical teams on the ground to assess and see the damage in the affected areas so that we can see how the NGOs and humanitarian partners will intervene,” he said. “We discussed deliberately, and we agreed unanimously on other issues.”

“The very important thing is the interagency assessment where the NGOs are supposed to help deliver to us the accurate data for all affected areas so that the government can decide to make proper decisions,” Luka said.

He urged communities to embrace peace.

Andrew Marial, the ACROSS peace economic representative, said the government invited all partners operating in Lakes State.

“We discussed the dry spell across Lakes State. Many counties are affected by lack of rain, and many farmers lost crops and were discouraged from cultivating,” he said. “I think this is a major issue, and that is the reason we were called to meet to discuss the way forward, and we discussed a lot of things. All eight counties will be assessed to see the impact of the dry spell.”

For his part, Mabor Paul Koordit, the head of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in Lakes State, said the coordination meeting was to plan for mitigation of hunger after crop failure across the state due to drought.

“The meeting was very fruitful, and we resolved many things, including the press release declaring the emergency hunger alert in Lakes State,” he said. “So, we resolved many things, and we appreciate all partners and UN agencies that contributed positively, and the deliberation went on very well.”