By Mamer Abraham
South Sudan has secured a $215 million Regional Climate Resilient Programme (RCRP) project, which is funded by the World Bank.
The funding will improve the management of the negative impacts of climate impacts in the country.
Other countries targeted in the same kind of funding include Comoros, Mozambique, and Madagascar.
Launched yesterday, the $215 million World Bank-funded project under phase 1 of the RCRP, focuses on improving the management of water-related climate impacts in Eastern and Southern Africa.
This project, which will span five years, will be run by the government of South Sudan through the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation but supervised by the World Bank.
Dr. James Wani Igga, the vice president for the economic cluster, stated that the funding would revamp the water resources policies by empowering the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation.
“The RCRP will contribute to the development of water sector policies and institutional frameworks in South Sudan, enabling the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI) to carry out its overall responsibility for water policy and management in the country,” Dr. Igga said.
The vice president for economic clusters maintained that the project would cushion the climatic shocks that the country had been subjected to in recent years.
“Despite the water sector’s current challenges, including a scarcity of human and financial resources, overlapping institutional responsibilities, and fragile management systems, I am optimistic about the kind of positive impact this project will have on our water sector and our ability to navigate future climate shocks”, Igga continued.
Pal Mai Deng, the minister for water resources and irrigation, said the initiative was imperative for flood forecasting and other climate-related early warnings, adding that the country lacked systematic data management tools for data processing and storage.
“We have only eight operational hydrometric monitoring stations in the entire country, of which five have both manual and automatic data transmission mechanisms (telemetry); two have only automatic data transmission mechanisms (telemetry), and one has only manual,” Pal said.
Firas Raad, South Sudan’s World Bank Country Manager, stressed that the project would also aim at the prevention of violent conflict as it addresses Green, Resilient, and Inclusive Development (GRID) and the Climate Change Action Plan 2021–2025.
“The objectives of the RCRP are well aligned with the World Bank’s updated Fragile, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) strategy, which focuses, among other things, on preventing violent conflict and helping countries transition out of fragility,” Raad said.
In June, the First Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar Teny, and the former finance minister, Dier Tong Ngor, met with Dr. Floribert Ngaruko, the World Bank’s Executive Director for Constituency Countries in the East and West African Regions.
The office of the first vice president stated in a statement on Facebook that the World Bank had pledged to fund economic and livelihood activities in South Sudan.
“The World Bank’s Executive Director also highlighted prospects of cooperation and partnership with the Government of South Sudan in areas of climate change and crisis response windows, among other global challenges,’’ read part of the statement.
Dr. Machar urged the World Bank to also prioritize the construction of roads and ensure that projects related to embarking on a journey to clean energy were fully funded.