Southern states facing nutritional emergency

The nutritional situation in southern Sudan has improved but it remains above emergency levels due to food shortages, inadequate health services, poor childcare practices and lack of water and sanitation services, an NGO operating in the area reported. Despite the improvement, efforts were still needed to detect and treat acute malnutrition among children in many parts of the region, Action Against Hunger (ACF) said in an assessment of data from 28 surveys done by various agencies. "The surveys targeted children under five years of age," Sabrina Silvain, ACF programme coordinator for South Sudan told IRIN on Tuesday. Each survey, she added, screened 900 children in each of 15 counties of Upper Nile, Bahr El Ghazal and Equatoria states. The data showed that the average prevalence of global acute malnutrition (GAM) and severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in 2003, were 20.8 percent and 3.6 percent respectively. This appeared to suggest an improvement from 2002 when GAM was 26 percent and SAM five percent, ACF said. According to World Health Organization nutrition emergency thresholds for southern Sudan, a situation is considered an emergency when the GAM rate is over 15 percent and the SAM rate is four percent and above. ACF noted that the lower 2003 malnutrition rates could be explained by methodological uncertainties and the fact that a nutritional improvement in Upper Nile state had been countered by rising malnutrition rates in Bahr el-Ghazal. "As forthcoming peace opens up new avenues for donors to explore, it is worth restating that the nutritional situation in southern Sudan warrants considerable attention and should be included as a funding priority," ACF said. "In particular, it will be of paramount importance to allot resources in order to gradually increase the capacity of southern Sudan governance structures to address malnutrition autonomously," it added. Calling for a multisectoral approach to combat malnutrition, ACF said it was also necessary to strengthen local capacities to allow trained Sudanese health workers to take over surveillance activities and treatment of malnutrition. It proposed that nutrition be made a public health priority and that emerging structures of the southern Sudan administration and their financial partners, integrate nutrition in their health policy. "This should allow for active participation in the building of Sudanese capacity to detect, treat and prevent malnutrition, and better collaboration with donors and agencies involved in detection, treatment, and prevention of nutrition emergencies," ACF said. The Sudanese government and the main southern rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, signed three key protocols in the Kenyan town of Naivasha on 26 May, bringing them a step closer to a comprehensive peace agreement after two decades of war. The protocols, which covered power-sharing arrangements and the administration of three contested areas during a six-year interim period, outlined the formation of a decentralised government of national unity and devolution of power to Sudan's individual states. The full report can be found at: www.aah-usa.org