Resource Portal for South Sudan Implementing Partners

This report gives an overview of the qualitative analysis of 32 focus group discussions and two key informant interviews that were conducted with community-level participants in eight payams of Akobo County.

This modified qualitative survey instrument targets representatives from the four corners of the community in an inclusive, participatory, and facilitated resilience conversation to gather perspectives on how communities operate as a system and the existing resilience capacities to prepare for, mitigate, and recover from shocks and stressors.

A team of two USAID Policy LINK staff traveled to Aweil to facilitate an Inclusive Champions Group training workshop. This report details the workshop activities and highlights the contribution of USAID to the Partnership for Recovery and Resilience.

The Community Resilience Mapping exercise captured in this report reached all seven payams of Budi County. The exercise examined the various circumstances that communities have faced since independence through the current pandemic and approaches to recovery and resilience by individuals and communities.

In early August 2021, Policy LINK launched a community engagement process in Jur River county that built upon the proven tactics employed while working in the Partnership for Recover and Resilience Partnership Areas of Aweil, Torit, Wau, and Yambio. Policy LINK was successful in reaching more than 50 community leaders representing youth, women, civil society, private sector, traditional authorities, and county and state government representatives for all six payams of Jur River County. This report chronicles the key steps, lessons learned, and challenges faced by the Policy LINK Area Program Managers.

Between August 2021 and June 2022, Policy LINK conducted a series of activities designed to build community-led resilience in Jur River County. This report describes the June 2022 workshop in which community delegates, local and state government officials, and USAID Implementing Partners developed a joint county-level feedback strategy.

This report serves as a reference point for USAID IPs and local communities across Jur River county to build on the initial agreed areas of collaborations and future potential opportunities for collaboration. It sums up the envisioned collaboration as articulated in this foundational plan around the planned resilience action priorities.

The three-day Jur River county-level Sense-making Workshop convened and empowered 39 participants including county authorities, USAID Implementing Partners (IPs), and state-level stakeholders with the community resilience mapping evidence to articulate resilience priorities and identify locally led solutions using an appreciative and facilitative leadership approach that puts the community first in the resilience-building process. here

The four-day Jur River County Local Action Planning workshop was held May 24-27, 2022 at the Royal Castle Hotel in Wau, Western Bahr El Ghazal State. This report provides an overview of the workshop and summarizes the resulting plans.

The workshops described in this report show how Policy LINK employed an appreciative and facilitative leadership approach that allowed it to put community first in the resilience process by empowering communities to develop local action plans, implement community-driven resilience programs, and set a community-centric development agenda. The Local Action Planning Workshops were held at payam head offices in Kuajiena, Rocrocdong, Kangi, Udici, Wau Bai and Marial Bai.

From mid-August to September 2021, Policy LINK expanded its work into Jur River County with plans to conduct the community resilience mapping exercise. Having witnessed the growing wave of youth protest over the lack of employment opportunities within the humanitarian / development / peacebuilding sectors, Policy LINK initiated an innovation to its recruitment practice which became successful and gained high praise from the local community and local government, while avoiding youth unrest in the county. This report provides key insights and good practices for localizing recruitment at the county-level, while ensuring transparency and accountability.

From November to December 2021, Policy LINK mobilized the participation of almost 650 persons from the six payams of Jur River county in Sense-making workshops, where participants reviewed and validated the most relevant community resilience mapping findings for local community members from the four corners of the community. This report covers the workshop methodologies, daily activities, key outcomes, community aspirations, lessons learned and challenges faced.

This report details the process of developing key messages around themes such as community-led resilience; shifting community mindset; envisioning a better future for Wau community; community ownership, responsibility, and resource commitment; most impactful shocks and stressors; and resilience action plans and collaboration. It also describes existing forums identified by community representatives that will be used to share key resilience messages within their payams.

A Community Feedback Workshop was held at the end of March 2022 to help prepare Wau County community representatives to develop and disseminate key messages on community-led resilience through existing avenues or platforms to sensitize the broader Wau County community on how to achieve their resilience aspirations.

An in-depth look into the fifth step of Policy LINK’s 5-Step participatory planning approach and process for building community-led resilience, the Joint Work Planning workshop brought together over 60 persons including community-selected representatives, county and state government officials, and USAID implementing partners. The Workshop provided an opportunity, space, and platform for mutual information exchange, trust-building, and dialogue on how best to forge collaboration between stakeholders to enhance resilience capacities and reduce chronic vulnerability to the most impactful shocks identified in the county.

In November – December 2021, Policy LINK launched a bottom-up approach for facilitating community representatives in the development of community resilience action plans for addressing the most impactful shocks. This report provides in-depth understanding into the practical design, methodologies, and outcomes of a three-day workshop that was held in each of the five payams of Wau county with 35 representatives of the four corners of community.

The Wau County-level LAP workshop was conducted for four days from February 21 to 24, 2022 with an overall objective to produce the Wau County Resilience Priority Actions and the Wau County Resilience Action Plan. The information generated fed into the Joint Work Planning (JWP) Workshop for the formulation of a coherent Community Resilience Action Plan. The County-level LAP Workshop included the participation of the 25 payam delegates, the Wau County Commissioner, Mr. Jacinto Mattia Mboro, and the representatives from ACTED, FAO, and the Norwegian Refugee Committee (NRC).Description goes here

As part of its technical support to PfRR, Policy LINK collaborated with the Yambio Area Reference Group (ARG) and Yambio Civic Engagement Centre (CEC) to conduct three CDC sensitization workshops in Yambio and Nzara between September 27 and October 12, 2021. These workshops were necessary to increase community awareness and engagement in the PfRR at the grassroots level.