Republic of South Sudan's National Adaptation Programme of Actions (NAPA) to Climate Change.

Republic of South Sudan's National Adaptation Programme of Actions (NAPA) to Climate Change is a cross-cutting national policy with the overarching objective to communicate to the international community priority activities that will address South Sudan's urgent and immediate needs for adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change. South Sudan's NAPA specifies 5 priority activities (referred to as Priority Adaptation Projects), namely: i) Environment; ii) Water Resources; iii) Agriculture; iv) Disaster Risk Reduction; and v) Policy and Institutional Framework. The guiding principles for all adaptation projects include, among others: Promotion of conflict resolution and peace-building; gender equality and other vulnerable groups to be considered in the design of projects; promotion of livelihood diversification; indigenous knowledge to be included in the design of adaptation projects; and land tenure to be considered when deciding the projects' location.
To help with eliminating the food insecurity and improve livelihoods, efforts will be focused to promoting climate-smart agricultural techniques under changing climatic patterns. To this end, the activities will focus on the establishment of climate-smart agricultural techniques in target communities, introduction of supplementary irrigation techniques, integrated pest management and disease control for crops and livestock, and promotion of conservation in agriculture and agroforestry.
In the framework of increasing the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, which will also enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems the top priority Adaptation Project is the 'Promotion of reforestation and agroforestry to reduce vulnerability to droughts and floods'. To this end, the activities include: promotion of agroforestry practices in rural communities; strengthening of forest extension system; undertaking of market assessments and value chain analyses for forest products; developing markets and value chains for forest products, including NTFPs; developing sustainable management plans for timber (and charcoal) harvesting; assisting communities to determine size and boundary of marginal land for allocation to individual households in the community for tree planting; and rehabilitation of degraded forests, focusing on tree species that generate multiple non-timber forest products and generate alternative livelihoods (for example bee keeping and acacia gum harvesting); establishing new or upgrade existing community forest nurseries; promotion of alternative energy options; capacity-building and awareness-raising of rural communities, including training of community members to integrate tree planting and management in their farming systems.
Another priority project is the 'Sustainable management and conservation of wetlands in South Sudan' whose main objective is to conserve and sustainably manage wetlands in South Sudan to reduce the negative effects of floods and droughts on surrounding communities. Activities in this area include preparation of assessments, management plans, training of local communities and restoration of degraded wetlands. In the domain of disaster risk reduction the priority project focuses on the establishment of improved drought and flood Early Warning Systems in South Sudan through improved hydro-meteorological monitoring network for timely provision of accurate information for disaster preparedness to reduce the vulnerability of local communities to floods and droughts.
In the framework of increasing the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, which will also enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems the top priority Adaptation Project is the 'Promotion of reforestation and agroforestry to reduce vulnerability to droughts and floods'. To this end, the activities include: promotion of agroforestry practices in rural communities; strengthening of forest extension system; undertaking of market assessments and value chain analyses for forest products; developing markets and value chains for forest products, including NTFPs; developing sustainable management plans for timber (and charcoal) harvesting; etc. Another priority project is the 'Sustainable management and conservation of wetlands in South Sudan' whose main objective is to conserve and sustainably manage wetlands in South Sudan to reduce the negative effects of floods and droughts on surrounding communities. Activities in this area include preparation of assessments and management plans, training of local communities and restoration of degraded wetlands. Another project is the establishment of improved drought and flood Early Warning Systems in South Sudan through improved hydro-meteorological monitoring network for timely provision of accurate information for disaster preparedness to reduce the vulnerability of local communities to floods and droughts. Finally, the last activities of the top priority list include a policy and institutional framework project focused on strengthening the institutional capacity of the Government of South Sudan for adaptation planning and integration of climate change into national policies and planning processes.
Regarding governance, the Ministry of Environment is the responsible authority for implementation of the NAPA framework. Within the Ministry, a NAPA Team was formed to administer and coordinate the NAPA process. A multi-disciplinary Project Steering Committee (PSC) was also established, with representatives from different line ministries and academia. The role of the Project Steering Committee was to provide overall guidance and strategic oversight for the project. Monitoring and evaluation will be carried on regular basis and will be project-specific both in terms of the involved stakeholders and the content of indicators and reporting details.