SSARP (2002-2006)

Southern Sudan Agricultural Revitalisation Program

General Context

Southern Sudan has high potential for agricultural production and marketing, but agriculture has, for the most part, remained at the subsistence level due to war and continued insecurity, social disruption, destruction of communication infrastructure and economic decline have slowed the transition of post-conflict areas of southern Sudan from crisis to economic recovery and food security. While many NGO programs in the more stable areas are evolving from relief to rehabilitation, training and extension activities have focused on food production to improve household food security. There has been a lack of farm management and agribusiness skills training to help farmers move from subsistence to commercial production. Lack of educational opportunities and low levels of literacy have further reduced the effectiveness of the training programs. 
There is an underdeveloped institutional capacity and structure to manage the development process at all levels — payam, county, and region. While there have been efforts to provide some credit for business and enterprise startup in some areas, the majority of people in southern Sudan have no access to capital for investment in agriculture and agricultural businesses. These issues must be addressed in a manner that is appropriate to the local circumstances that characterize various regions of southern Sudan. The USAID supported program aims to address some these constraints by providing agriculture and business skills training to stimulate agricultural commercialisation, strengthening commodity networks and agribusinesses, and providing access to capital, technology and information, so that southern Sudan will become more self-reliant and better prepared for a transition to peace. 

Implementation Strategy

The program, will be implemented by a consortium of different agencies led by the Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Decision making will be controlled by a task force (Technical Training Task forces (TTTF)) comprising members of the Sudanes Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM), regional representatives, Development Assistance Technical team (DATT), USAID and Consortium partners. VSF - Belgium is managing the livestock component.

VSF Belgium will seek to work with all the stakeholders in south Sudan in the delivery of its training programs. In recognition of the fact that business is the movement of goods and services for economic gain, SSARP will attempt to address agricultural development issues affecting the entire production chain. In order to address the real issues affecting livestock development and create a strong agribusiness orientation in livestock progrc
s, a broad based market identification and training needs assessment will be conducted to identify gaps at all levels of animal agriculture. This will enable the targeting of profitable market opportunities and development of training packages that effectively address real issues affecting livestock production and marketing.

Specific constraints

The key constraints expected to impact on the performance of the program include insecurity, high levels of poverty, poor physical infrastructure, lack of a proper policy environment, variable means of economic exchange, low levels of literacy and skills, low levels of technological development and low levels of economic development.

Objectives

Main objective

To improve the livelihood and food security of communities in southern Sudan by building self-reliance in the agricultural sector while maintaining and improving the natural resource base for future generations.

Program objective

To increase southern Sudanese capacity for agricultural production and marketing.

Specific objectives

1. Increased access to agriculture and business skills, technology and information
2. Increased access to capital for agricultural enterprises
3. Increased capacity of commodity networks and agribusinesses to facilitate expanded trade.

Activities

The main project activities include training, technology development and technology transfer.

Beneficiaries

The Southern Sudanese people