South Sudan

The Shelter and Non-Food Items (SNFIs) Cluster was launched in South Sudan in 2011 and acts as a coordinating mechanism for partner organizations working to provide life-saving household items and shelter materials to conflict- and disaster-affected people in South Sudan. The Cluster’s goal is ‘ensure that crisis-affected people can sustainably live in secure, safe, and dignified conditions by facilitating their access to adequate shelter and basic household items’. 

The SNFI Cluster operates in all ten states of South Sudan and the Abyei Administrative Area. At the national level, the Cluster is led by the International Organization for Migrations (IOM), supported by Norwegian Refugee Council as a Co-Lead and Africa Development Aid (ADA) as Roving Co-Lead. IOM also manages the common pipeline, which provides a reliable, cost-effective, and steady stream of quality materials and pre-positioning materials in strategic locations across the country to partners for distribution to needy populations. 

The Cluster is guided by four strategic objectives:

SO1. Ensure provision of timely, adequate access to safe and appropriate emergency shelter and lifesaving NFIs to newly displaced people or populations with new vulnerabilities.

SO2. Improve the living conditions of highly vulnerable protracted IDPs, returnees, and host communities who are unable to meet their SNFI needs.

SO3. Support the most vulnerable returnees, host communities, and IDPs with durable solutions and rebuild lives through the implementation of shelter and NFI interventions.

SO4. Support recovery, resilience building, and access to land, housing, and property of returning populations to achieve durable solutions.

For 2024, the Cluster has 23 active partners (2 UN agencies, 08 international NGOs, and 13 National NGOs). These partners respond through either static or mobile approaches delivering shelter and non-food items mainly through 4 response modalities.

1. In-kind assistance
2. Cash and voucher assistance (CVA)
3. A combination of in-kind and CVA
4. Shelter repairs/upgrades in the IDP sites

Protection, environmental protection, disability inclusion, and accountability to the affected population are mainstreamed in all cluster interventions. 

The Cluster is advocating for durable solutions to address shelter needs. The Cluster has scaled up cash-based intervention, disaster risk reduction, and mitigation strategies in the past two years to respond to floods and drought effects. Moreover, the Cluster will continue strengthening the monitoring and reporting systems, including assessments, information management, post-distribution monitoring, and reporting to inform all the interventions. Lastly, the Cluster provides coordination forums to liaise with partners, the media, the private sector, and other actors with a stake in providing humanitarian assistance. It will make every effort to involve the affected people and their communities in decisions related to the shelter response.