Increasing Coordination for Improved Humanitarian Response in Tonj South

Protection mainstreaming is critical for ensuring that humanitarian programming is conducted through a protection and conflict sensitive lens as well as for ensuring programming incorporates the needs of the most vulnerable members of the community. When non-protection partners are trained on protection mainstreaming, their programming is enhanced and they can better respond to the needs of all community members. As a leading protection partner in South Sudan, NP has been training partners from all sectors in protection mainstreaming throughout the country. 

In March 2021, NP travelled to Tonj South to conduct a protection assessment and to provide an immediate response to identified protection concerns. After NP observed that there were no static protection partners in the area, NP decided to conduct a protection mainstreaming for non-protection partners operating from Tonj Town to ensure the centrality of protection in their activities. 

On March 30th, 2021, NP held a protection mainstreaming training for 12 participants (nine men and three women) from four partners organizations—World Vision, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), Comitato Collaborazione Medica (CCM) and The Organization for Children’s Harmony (TOCH). 

During the training, NP identified two partners providing gender-based violence (GBV) case management however, there was no coordination between the partners and there was no unified referral pathway. Each partner had its own internal referral pathway that would guide their organization in responding to GBV cases. This situation sometimes caused delays in providing effective GBV response to survivors. This could be due to the lack of transportation to send a survivor to Wau or not knowing that a survivor could receive services in Tonj South. 

As a result of these findings, NP decided it was imperative to adapt its programming to respond to the lack of coordination between these GBV partners. As such, the rest of the training provided a forum for all partners to introduce their services so that partners knew what services existed in the area and duplication and gaps could be reduced. For example, during this session, it was mentioned that the health partner in Tonj Town, Tonj South had the capacity to treat GBV survivors, thereby reducing or eliminating the need for other partners to refer survivors to Wau. 

This situation indicates the importance of protection partners to ensure the protection of civilians even in the programming of non-protection partners. Often times, even with the best intentions of all parties, the protection of civilians can be enhanced and coordination can be improved, thereby leading to improved access to services by the community. 

Though NP was only in Tonj South for a short period, it is likely that the protection programming it implemented in the area will have positive long-term and multi-sectoral impacts. NP hopes to return to Tonj South in the future and follow up on the development and dissemination of the GBV referral pathway as well as support the establishment and strengthening of referral pathways in other areas of its operation.

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NP’s Mobile Protection Response Team (MPRT) is funded by the South Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SSHF)