South Sudan

IMA World Health leads the five-year, USAID-funded MOMENTUM Integrated Health Resilience program, which is part of a suite of innovative MOMENTUM awards designed to holistically strengthen quality maternal, newborn, and child health in host countries around the world including South Sudan, DRC, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Sudan, Tanzania and Yemen. Working alongside local organizations, governments, and humanitarian and development partners in fragile settings, the project helps accelerate reductions in maternal, newborn, and child illness and death by increasing the capacity of host country institutions and local organizations—including new and underutilized partners—to introduce, deliver, scale up, and sustain the use of evidence-based, quality care.

With USAID/BHA support, IMA is delivering integrated health, nutrition and WASH services that target vulnerable internally displaced people (IDPs) and host communities in four counties in Jonglei State (Ayod, Nyirol, Fangak, and Canal/Pigi). Basic health care, clean water and household items are priority needs for the IDP and host communities where ongoing conflict, coupled with extreme flooding and drought, is exacerbating needs among these risk-prone populations. Such populations have faced severe adverse effects due to income insecurity, inadequate sanitation practices, and limited access to protection, water and health services. These challenges have resulted in devastating outcomes such as death, diseases (such as malaria, acute respiratory tract infections and diarrhea), and psychological distress. Women, children and youth are disproportionately impacted. IMA is reaching populations where they settle, establishing mobile health clinics to 1) improve access to essential health services; 2) improve the nutritional status of pregnant and lactating women (PLWs) and children; and 3) provide target populations with access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services.

In August 2020, severe flooding in South Sudan’s Ayod County displaced families, disrupted lives and livelihoods and severed access to markets and humanitarian services. Many affected were vulnerable IDPs already facing acute food insecurity and malnutrition. IMA has implemented emergency nutrition interventions targeting IDPs and host communities in Ayod County since 2017. Now, as a permanent partner of Lutheran World Relief (LWR) under the Corus International family of organizations, IMA combines its expertise in nutrition programming with LWR’s proven ability to strengthen rural livelihoods in South Sudan. The LOSIH project takes this integrated approach to provide the resources and skills needed to both reduce severe and moderate acute malnutrition in children under five as well as to expand income-generating opportunities for households through nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions focusing on kitchen gardening, fishing, and post-harvest handling.

Learn more about the LOSIH project.

By partnering with the END Fund, IMA strengthens local health systems to support VL prevention, treatment and control in South Sudan. VL, also known as kala-azar, is a debilitating, and if left untreated, fatal neglected tropical disease (NTD) that over two million people are at risk of contracting across South Sudan. IMA advances local leadership by supporting 25 health facilities in the four disease-prevalent states through the provision of medication and diagnostics, training health care workers on VL identification and treatment, and deploying community health volunteers to promote awareness and local engagement. In support of the government’s national VL strategy, IMA is bolstering local capacity for health facility management, improving integration of VL services into the primary health care system, facilitating national and state joint planning for VL control, establishing lab-based surveillance and data-sharing strategies, and improving case detection through rapid testing.

Learn more about IMA's partnership with the END Fund.

Funded by USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) and led by Tearfund, the ESIR II project implemented a multisectoral, integrated response to improve access to essential health and nutrition services, food security, protection of women and children, WASH and agriculture food security services among returnees, IDPs and host populations in Central Equatoria State. In partnership with local actors, IMA World Health operationalized non-functional county health facilities and established mobile outreach teams, providing emergency and essential services through 6 fixed health facilities and 3 mobile health facilities to reach both settled and highly mobile populations. In addition to training staff on COVID-19 prevention and response, outreach work through community health workers raised awareness of health provision, health promotion, social and behavior change, and how to sustainably manage key health infrastructure. Furthermore, IMA World Health facilitated a referral network to improve access to specialized care through the provision of transportation to hospitals in South Sudan and Uganda. ESIR II services targeted 43,273 individuals, including 38,178 IDPs, residing in Morobo, Kajo-Keji and Lainya Counties.

Learn more.