South Sudan’s Ministry of Finance has contributed $15 million dollars to the World Food Program (WFP) to help it respond to emergency situations in South Sudan. The announcement was made during the signing of an agreement with the WFP Country Director in Juba on Wednesday.

According to South Sudan’s Minister of Finance, Dier Tong Ngor, part of the money is meant to enable WFP to support South Sudanese communities fleeing war in Sudan.

 “Instead of us contributing $10 million, we agreed that 15 million will be implemented through the World Food Program. So out of the $114 million that we received from the IMF under the Food Shock Window Facility, we allocated 15 million to World Food. This event is timely and the Situation that is happening at the border cannot wait. After the signing of this agreement, we will immediately disburse that amount,” Ngor stated.

Ngor said the $15 million contribution was a commitment by the government to fulfil the $10 M pledge made during UN General Assembly last year by Vice President Hussein Abdelbaggi.

“The signing of today has a long historical background. Last year when our vice president Hussein Abdelbaggi addressed the UN General Assembly, he made a contribution on behalf of our government that South Sudan will contribute an amount of $10 million US Dollars to the work of the World Food Program and that was a recognition of the great service that the World Food has been providing to our people. When we were negotiation with IMF the Food Shock Window, we made sure that in the implementation of the resources that were given to us, that we will make an allocation first to meet our commitment that we pledged during the UN General Assembly,” he added.

For her part, the WFP Country Director Mary Ellen McGroarty said the contribution by the South Sudan government will help address food insecurity in South Sudan.

“This contribution from the government of South Sudan to WFP will help us to provide lifesaving food assistance, nutrition assistance to over 265,000 people. We will be able to do that by giving food packages or stimulating the local economy where markets are working to be able to get cash assistance,” Ellen said.

Mary said the money will also boost their school feeding programs across schools in South Sudan.

“It will also give us much-needed injection into our school meals program. We all know children are the future of our country and anything that we can do to keep young children in school is so critical,” she said.

The WFP boss said many communities in South Sudan are lacking food and that it was the right time to respond to the emerging needs at the onset of the rainy season.

“It is also the beginning of the lean season and it is also the beginning of the rainy season when the food situation for many communities in South Sudan gets more difficult,” McGroarty said.

The signing of the multilateral agreement with the government and WFP is meant to respond to the emerging situation in South Sudan as a result of the influx of returnees and refugees fleeing war in Sudan.

According to WFP Country Director, to date, over 45,000 people fleeing conflict in Sudan have crossed the borders in which, most of whom are South Sudanese returnees.  

WFP has said it is currently providing return packages to those returning to their communities across South Sudan.