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The Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) in South Sudan – a partnership to save lives in
the most remote regions.
The Issue: Children in emergencies
RRM goal: Delivery of life-saving services in
areas of the country where the resumption of
conflict has deprived vulnerable communities
of essential services, leaving hundreds of
thousands of people displaced and on the
edge of a catastrophic food security and
nutrition crisis.
The outbreak of fighting in Juba in December
2013 quickly spread across the Greater
Upper Nile region in Unity, Upper Nile and
Jonglei States. Many humanitarian actors
suspended operations as security
deteriorated. Communities have been
displaced and denied protection, losing
access to even the most basic health and
nutrition services. Reaching the most
vulnerable was an imperative, requiring
innovation in a complex and ever changing
security environment. The World Food
Programme (WFP) and UNICEF established
a joint Rapid Response Mechanism to reach
the most inaccessible areas, where UNICEF
and WFP staff would deploy to deep field
locations, and using general food distribution
as a way to access large numbers of conflict-
affected people, conduct registrations and
allow screening to trigger services in nutrition
and other sectors.
Starting in March 2014, the WFP-UNICEF
RRM targeted areas with alarming levels of
food insecurity and delivered an integrated
package of life-saving humanitarian relief
including food, preventive blanket
supplementary feeding, curative nutrition
services, vaccination for children, support for
children to access education, register the
thousands of unaccompanied and separated
children, as well as help for communities to
access safe water. Both agencies partnered
with dozens of local and international
organisations and gathered support from
donors and humanitarian partners operating
in South Sudan.
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RRM key principles
1. The RRM’s mission is guided by the
humanitarian imperative and the
rights of children. It enables a shared
vision of needs and priorities within the
humanitarian community and provides a
platform to advance UNICEF’s core
commitments to children in humanitarian
action (CCCs). These oblige UNICEF to
ensure that a predictable, timely and
effective response is undertaken to meet
the humanitarian needs of children in
emergencies.
2. As a humanitarian entry point the
RRM is a foundation for planning
beyond the immediate emergency
response. It provides essential support
to UNICEF partners for the re-
establishment of their presence in areas
which have experienced little or no
humanitarian services since the
outbreak of the conflict in 2013.
3. The RRM is designed to be a key tool
to accelerate the Joint WFP-UNICEF
Nutrition Scale-Up Plan, which
endeavours to halt the deteriorating
food security situation and prevent
famine in South Sudan. When setting
up the RRM both WFP and UNICEF built
on immediate and rapid responses each
agency had initiated from the start of the
crisis. The RRM offers unique
opportunities to reach not only the areas
that were previously inaccessible but
also those to which newly displaced
populations have recently fled as well as
to return to remote locations where there
has been a deterioration and where
there is little or no partner presence on
the ground.
4. The RRM plays a key role in child
protection and the protection of child
rights through gathering – formally and
informally – data and information on
grave child rights violations, and issues
such as unaccompanied children. All of
this is then used in ongoing advocacy.
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The Challenges
UNICEF and WFP have faced tremendous obstacles. A third of all the planned missions were
eventually cancelled or delayed because of the volatile security situation and the tough operating
environment. In any year, for the five or six months of the rainy season 60 per cent of the road
network is impassable, while heavy rainstorms and sodden airfields often renders flights unable to
fly or land. The start of the rains coincides with the critical hunger gap period. The access and
security situation for humanitarian staff has further deteriorated. Requests for individual screening
of national team members before deployment, together with restrictions on their movements once
on the ground is a continuing trend. During deployment coordination with authorities is challenging
when state-level and local administrations are often from opposing sides.
The RRM operates in an environment of constant uncertainty. A balance must be struck between
reducing time on the ground to the minimum necessary for staff safety and staying long enough to
deliver sustainable results and build capacity. The Rapid Response teams deploy to locations
where humanitarians have previously been forced to withdraw due to insecurity, often leaving the
local population vulnerable and without any life-saving services. Other times, it is the population
who have also fled – waiting days and weeks in the bush or in swamps for the fighting to stop.
Where possible, UNICEF and WFP work to build the capacity of partners not only so that they are
able to return but also so they can remain. In this way the RRM has added value as a multiplier of
capacity to expand coverage for NGOs engaged in the mechanism.
The Impact of RRM
As of September 2015, UNICEF has undertaken 55 RRM missions with WFP and other partners.
Each mission has been a voyage of discovery, building on the experiences of the preceding
missions to constantly refine and improve the operational response. More than 840,000 people,
including 173,000 children under five, were reached by UNICEF RRM interventions in nutrition,
health, water, sanitation and hygiene, education and child protection.
In conflict-affected states more than one in four children UNICEF vaccinated against measles was
reached through the RRM. Preliminary data suggests that the scale-up in operations – facilitated
through the RRM – helped stabilise the food security and nutrition situation in the country, even
though it remains fragile. More than 137,900 children were screened by UNICEF, which reached
3,500 children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition with therapeutic care delivered through
the RRM missions.
The RRM has helped provide lifesaving supplies including 34,700 mosquito nets and 5,600 clean
delivery kits as well as essential WASH supplies for 158,000 people. Approximately 35 per cent
of registered unaccompanied, separated and missing children have been identified through RRMs
while 54,000 children have gained access to education in emergencies.
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Investment Case
In the South Sudan context, where the cost of operating large scale humanitarian operations is
one of the most expensive in the world, UNICEF and WFP have joined forces to ensure value for
money in an effective and efficient response to some of the most remote parts of the country
through the RRM. The direct implementation of programmes has also made an important
contribution by providing not only an immediate on the ground response but also high quality
information on the situation of women and children in hard to reach areas, which has been
particularly significant for nutrition, health and child protection programmes.
Additionally, the RRM has demonstrated significant cost effectiveness given that dedicated RRM
resources amount to about 7 per cent1 of humanitarian funding received by UNICEF in 20142. The
cost savings of deploying an integrated package of services targeting the same population group
has also demonstrated a cost-efficient response, as compared to individual programmes or
partners implementing a lesser number of interventions at any one time.
The RRM also delivers across lines in opposition controlled areas and has enormous potential to
bring peace dividends or contribute to peace consolidation following the signing of the peace
agreement in late August.
1 Specific allocations to RRM received from mainly CHF (US$6.7M), Ikea (1mEuro) in addition to smaller contributions from DFID, ECHO and CERF totaling less than US$10 million dedicated RRM funds. By 14 December 2014, UNICEF received US$134.95 million towards their Other Resources Emergency (ORE) budget, based on signed agreements, against its appeal of US$151.8 million for the humanitarian response in 2014 (UNICEF HAC 2014 Overview). 2 It important to note that UNICEF does not pay for air assets for RRM missions which are funded by WFP and the logistics cluster therefore UNICEF funding for the RRM does not reflect the total cost.