Asked by: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how the UK will support the call from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for donors to provide US$600 million to the humanitarian response in South Sudan by the end of February 2015.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
Overall, the UK has committed £132.5m to the crisis in South Sudan and a further £58.9 million for South Sudanese refugees in the region, making it the second largest bilateral donor after the US. The UK has been an early responder since the start of the crisis in South Sudan, mobilising resources within days of the onset of conflict, and committing resources to the food security response early on to help avert famine in 2014. In response to the 2015 UN Appeal the UK has already allocated over £20 million. Additionally the UK disbursed almost £30 million in December 2014. The timely disbursement of these contributions was to take advantage of the 2015 dry season window; enabling partners to pre-position vital supplies and achieve cost effective transportation allowing more lives to be saved.
On 9th February 2015, at a joint UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Intergovernmental Authority on Development High-Level Event on the Humanitarian Crisis in South Sudan the UK strongly lobbied other donors to commit early funding in 2015 to the protracted humanitarian crisis and called on the Government of South Sudan to contribute more resources towards meeting the vast humanitarian needs of their people, facilitating unhindered humanitarian access and increasing support for basic services. At the conference, $618 million was pledged to support the 2015 humanitarian response in South Sudan.