ReliefWeb

Overview

On 8 July 2017, fighting broke out in Juba between the government-led SPLA and former opposition SPLA-IO. Since then, the states of Greater Equatoria have seen fighting spread to other towns and villages throughout the region, displacing hundreds of thousands South Sudanese across the borders into Uganda and Kenya. Many areas in Greater Equatoria are largely inaccessible to humanitarian actors due to insecurity and logistical constraints. As a result, only limited information is available on the humanitarian situation outside major displacement sites. In order to fill such information gaps and facilitate humanitarian planning, in late 2015, REACH piloted its Area of Origin (AoO) methodology, which takes a territory-based approach that may cover several bomas, to collect data in hard-to-reach areas of Unity State.

In December 2016, REACH decided to refine the methodology, moving from the AoO to the Area of Knowledge (AoK) methodology, an approach collecting information at the settlement level. The most recent OCHA Common Operational Dataset (COD) released in February 2016 has been used as the reference for settlement names and locations. Through AoK, REACH collects data from a network of Key Informants (KIs) who have sector-specific knowledge and gain information from regular direct or indirect contact, or recent displacement.

Using this new methodology, in April 2017, REACH collected information on Greater Equatoria using remote phone calling of KIs within the Equatorias to supplement data collected in displacement sites with information directly from assessed settlements. Data collected is aggregated to the settlement level and all percentiles presented in this factsheet, unless otherwise specified, represent percent of settlements within Greater Equatoria with that specific response. Although current AoK coverage is still limited and its findings not statistically significant, it provides an indicative understanding of the needs and current humanitarian situation in assessed areas of Greater Equatoria States. Data presented in this factsheet was collected remotely via telephone calling, and from Juba PoC site 1 and PoC site 3.