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<p>This week South Sudan celebrated their 8th Independence Day, as the youngest country in the world, you can imagine there&#8217;s a long agenda of priorities to get through and financing them remains a challenge. With a sometimes tumultuous past, the country can be perceived as insecure or unpeaceful and Wek Bol and his team at Africa Business Connect (ABC) believe that to be one of the main obstacles for the country in securing the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) that they need going forward. He joins CNBC Africa for more.</p>


How can South Sudan attract more foreign direct investment?

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<p>South Sudan lawmakers stormed out of budget presentation in parliament citing frustrations over non-payment of salaries to civil servants and soldiers. Parek Maduot, Director of Economic Development and Regional Integration at International Conference on the Great Lakes Region joins CNBC Africa for more.</p>


South Sudan economic outlook

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<p>Sudan is into the 3rd day of a civil disobedience campaign that protesters launched to demand a civilian role. Four people were reported dead on the first day of the strike, meanwhile opposition leader Yasir Arman along with other opposition top figures have reportedly been deported to neighbouring South Sudan. Sudanese activist, Rozan Ahmed joins CNBC Africa for more.</p>


Activist Rozan Ahmed gives update on Sudan’s civil disobedience campaign

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<p>As South Sudan concluded its series of investment roadshows, the last stop was South Africa. CNBC Africa’s Lubabalo Mashiqana caught up with Taban James, CEO, Stanbic Bank &#8211; a bank that has been at the war-zoned country for seven years about the ease of doing business under those difficult conditions.</p>


Stanbic Bank CEO Taban James on doing business in South Sudan

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<p>Everyone is fighting for investments, so why should you invest in South Sudan, since its birth in 2011 the country has suffered with political turmoil and economic stagnation. South Sudanese Cabinet Ministers and business leaders are meeting today with the African Energy Chamber and investors to put money into the country for an economic boost. Minister Onyoti Adigo Nyikwec spoke with CNBC Africa’s Lubabalo Mashiqana about investment opportunities in agriculture.</p>


Minister Onyoti Adigo Nyikwec investment opportunities in agriculture

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<p>South Sudanese Cabinet Ministers and business leaders are meeting today with the African Energy Chamber and investors to put money into the country for an economic boost. CNBC Africa’s reporter Lubabalo Mashiqana spoke to the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO, Alan Mukoki.</p>


Sacci CEO Alan Mukoki on the investment case for South Sudan

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<p>Everyone is fighting for investments, so why should you invest in South Sudan, since its birth in 2011 the country has suffered with political turmoil and economic stagnation.</p>


Minister Gabriel Thokuj Deng on mining business opportunities in South Sudan

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<p>Everyone is fighting for investments, so why should you invest in South Sudan, since its birth in 2011 the country has suffered with political turmoil and economic stagnation. South Sudanese Cabinet Ministers and business leaders are meeting today with the African Energy Chamber and investors to put money into the country for an economic boost. CNBC Africa’s Lubabalo Mashiqana spoke to Mtho Xulu, President of the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry.</p>


Sacci President Mtho Xulu on investment opportunities in South Sudan

<p>JUBA (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa will invest $1 billion in South Sudan’s oil sector, including in the construction of a refinery, the South African minister for energy and his South Sudanese counterpart for petroleum said on Friday.</p>
<p>South Sudan’s oil industry is dominated by Asian firms including China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Malaysia’s Petronas and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC Videsh).</p>
<p>The two ministers signed a memorandum of understanding which will also involve South Africa taking part in the exploration of several oil blocks, the ministers said.</p>
<p>“When this refinery is complete, it will have the capacity of producing 60,000 barrels of oil per day,” said Jeff Radebe, South Africa’s minister of energy.</p>
<p>Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, petroleum minister for South Sudan, said the deal also offers avenues for cooperation in the construction of a pipeline to serve fields located in the south of the country.</p>
<p>South Sudan exports its crude through another pipeline that goes to a port in neighbouring Sudan to the north.</p>
<p>“It is instrumental to have a new a pipeline,” Gatkuoth said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Denis Dumo; writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing bt Mark Potter and Jason Neely</p>


South Africa is investing $1 bln in South Sudan’s oil sector, what you need to know

<p>JUBA (Reuters) &#8211; South Sudan’s government proposed a bill to extend President Salva Kiir’s term for three years, undermining peace talks with opposition forces who condemned the move as illegal.</p>
<p>The bill seeks to amend the constitution to extend Kiir’s tenure to 2021, lawmakers told Reuters on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Deputy Paul Yoane Bonju said the bill was presented on Monday to parliament and that lawmakers intended to vote it into law this month.</p>
<p>The world’s youngest nation, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, erupted into violence in late 2013 over a political disagreement between Kiir and his former vice president Riek Machar.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of people have been killed since, and more than three million forced to flee their homes.</p>
<p>Kiir and Machar met last week and agreed on a new peace deal that included a ceasefire that took effect on Saturday. [L8N1TT39A]</p>
<p>It was violated on that day when government forces and rebels launched attacks on each other’s positions. [L8N1TW0I4] On Monday, there was more fighting and at least 18 civilians were killed.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, a spokesman for Machar’s rebel group SPLM-IO said the government was proposing an “illegal procedure” in attempting to extend Kiir’s term.</p>
<p>Reporting by Denis Dumo; Writing by Maggie Fick; editing by John Stonestreet</p>


Why South Sudan’s proposed bill to extend President Kiir’s term undermines peace talks

<p><em>By Silvester Okoth, Country Director, South Sudan, Veterinaires Sans Frontieres Germany (VSF-G)</em></p>
<p>When I decided to become a veterinarian, I never imagined it would involve seven-hour hikes across swamps, streams and rough terrain to deliver fridges full of animal vaccines.</p>
<p>A two-hour flight from Juba, where the sky meets the ground, the shrub and grasslands are occasionally interrupted only by gunshots – either a warning to turn back or take cover.</p>
<p>But in environments such as South Sudan, where there has been conflict since 1955, animal health forms an important part of the humanitarian effort.</p>
<p>Fortunately, and interestingly, war does not entirely wipe out the livestock market even though most pastoralists have lost their herds. In fact, in some areas where farmers are unable to grow grains, farm animals are the only source of food when everything else is scarce.</p>
<p>In such circumstances, it is crucial that we protect these animals as much as possible, especially because milk is a lifeline for the more than <a href="https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/southsudan_74635.html">275,000 children</a> kept hungry by war.</p>
<p>Real improvements are only possible when you have relative peace for a long period of time to allow us to introduce better breeds and production methods.</p>
<p>Otherwise, the best we can do is vaccinate cows, sheep and chickens against key and endemic diseases, to safeguard them for food or for sale.</p>
<p>Doing so is not easy at all. The road network has been deteriorating because of the conflict, so we must use aircraft for travel. But this still leaves us hours from the field, and in the middle of a war, planes are normally reserved for priority life-saving commodities, not animal vaccines.</p>
<p>Three out of every four trips typically fail. But that fourth time, we manage to line up the animal health workers, refrigerate the vaccines and get on the plane. On the ground is where the hard work starts: from the fridge to the cattle in the fields, animal health teams carry the cold boxes on their shoulders.</p>
<p>The trek is often seven hours long, and we must keep a close eye on the cold box throughout. If the temperature rises, the vaccine is destroyed and our hard work is lost.</p>
<p>Our journey is difficult: you walk through open land, occasionally having to wade through streams up to your neck &#8211; but we get there. When we reach the livestock farmers, their cattle are always in the open; there are no fences. Everything, even cooking and sleeping, is done outside. It’s very basic. We have limited resources, and we do our best.</p>
<p>Even in areas less affected by the protracted fighting, animal agriculture remains an important  way for families to increase their income, and this means better access to medicine, food and education for their children.</p>
<p>In this case, we have worked with farmers to introduce new breeds of chicken, which lay up to four times as many eggs. It&#8217;s an understandably closed society, where learning has not been easy. But this development – along with preventative health treatment &#8211; is meeting the growing demand for poultry and eggs locally.</p>
<p>In areas where there has been peace, we have been able to halve mortality levels in poultry from as high as 80 per cent.</p>
<p>But in the areas that have seen intense conflict for a long time, you can only achieve so much.</p>
<p>Vaccines are an essential service that we can offer now but long-term prosperity requires peace. Only then can veterinarians treat disease outbreaks, improve herd nutrition, educate farmers, and more.</p>
<p>For now though, if we can have more vaccines available and get them to the farmer and their animals, either through the humanitarian service or through private practitioners, then we&#8217;ll have eased a few of the major problems among animal livestock keepers in South Sudan.</p>


Op-Ed: Why livestock can’t be ignored in Africa’s war-torn areas

<p class="first-p_2htdt">South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has fired his finance minister and a senior military official on a U.N. blacklist, a presidential decree said.</p>
<div id="attachment_129412" style="width: 336px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-129412" class="wp-image-129412 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/South_Sudan-Wikimedia.png" alt="" width="326" height="350" /><p id="caption-attachment-129412" class="wp-caption-text">Photo: Wikimedia.</p></div>
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<p class="">The decree, read on state radio late on Monday, gave no reason for the decision to replace Finance Minister Stephen Dhieu Dau with Salvatore Garang Mabiordit, who is from Kiir’s northern home area of Warrap. Dau is from Upper Nile.</p>
<p class="">Lieutenant General Marial Chanuang Yol Mangok, was dismissed from his post as assistant chief of the defence forces, also without explanation.</p>
<p class="">Mangok, who once was the head of Kiir’s presidential guard, is among six rival generals that the U.N. Security Council blacklisted for“fuelling the ongoing conflict and contributing to the devastating humanitarian crisis” in South Sudan in 2015.</p>
<p class="">South Sudan slid into civil war in December 2013 when a political crisis triggered fighting between forces loyal to Kiir and rebels allied with his former deputy Riek Machar.</p>
<p class="">Thousands have been killed and millions displaced in the conflict that has often been along ethnic lines. Several ceasefires have been agreed, then broken.</p>
<p class="">The conflict has also hurt the economy, with crude oil output at less than half of its pre-war level of 245,000 barrels per day.</p>
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<p class="content_27_rw">Reporting by Denis Dumo; Editing by George Obulutsa and Andrew Heavens</p>
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South Sudan president fires finance minister and blacklisted general

<p>(Thomson Reuters Foundation) &#8211; In western Uganda’s Kyangwali refugee settlement, Tamari Mutesi teaches tailoring to young women who do not go to school.</p>
<p>The initiative she works with aims to combat violence against young single mothers and other refugee girls, including those mistreated by their husbands, by helping them gain economic independence.</p>
<p>Mutesi, 27, a refugee from Democratic Republic of Congo, has trained more than 25 of her peers since 2008, after she and several friends learned the trade from an experienced tailor.</p>
<p>Her trainees have now started their own tailoring businesses, earning enough to be self-reliant. Adelphine Ingabire, 22, said her income is about 10,000 Ugandan shillings ($2.74) a day.</p>
<p>“I feel so happy to see fellow girls getting skills to stand for themselves, to feed their families, and help their parents and neighbours,” said Mutesi.</p>
<p>Her work is backed by a group started in 2005 by four refugee boys from Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Sudan &#8211; named COBURWAS after those countries &#8211; who wanted to help children living in Kyangwali camp go to school.</p>
<p>One of the boys, Joseph Munyambanza, fled the war in Democratic Republic of Congo aged six.</p>
<p>Later, he and his adolescent peers raised funds by working on farms and constructed a classroom. They identified the neediest children and enrolled them to study.</p>
<p>Realising girls aged 10 and above were most at risk of falling out of school and into early marriage, the COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa (CIYOTA) launched a scheme to help them complete primary school and enter secondary school. It set up a hostel for about 50 girls, enabling them to study.</p>
<p>According to UNESCO, many African girls only receive five years of schooling, while 9 million girls between the ages of six and 11 will never go to school at all in sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p>“Girl’s education is what I am passionate about. We have a big number of girls and less (education) infrastructure to support them,” Munyambanza told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.</p>
<p>Sheila Arach, 16, from South Sudan has just finished primary school and plans to continue studying. She said COBURWAS provides a safe environment for learning, as well as support for dealing with unwanted sexual advances.</p>
<p>“(It) has good teachers &#8211; we study at night and they talk to us about how to avoid men,” she said.</p>
<p>Annet Atieno, CIYOTA’s education manager, said primary-age girls are at risk of sexual abuse, especially those who are orphans, cared for by guardians and living in poverty in the settlement.</p>
<p>“Demand for sex is very high in such a set up,” she said. “But since we started the programme, the dropout rate reduced, the rate of absenteeism also dropped, and (the girls) are now focused on education.”</p>
<p>SCHOLARSHIPS<br />
For those looking to go on to higher education, philanthropic organisations can help, as with Munyambanza who received support from the Mastercard Foundation to pursue a biochemistry degree at London’s Westminster College.</p>
<p>Since 2013, the foundation has offered scholarships to more than 30 male and female refugees living at Kyangwali to study at universities around the world.</p>
<p>Favourite Regina from Rwanda graduated last October from the African Leadership Academy programme at the United States International University in Nairobi, and has since returned to Kyangwali to oversee projects and motivate its young girls.</p>
<p>“I talk to them about how everything is possible, and not to look at men as a solution,” said Regina.</p>
<p>Those who complete primary education are sent to secondary schools outside the settlement, and come back to learn more skills and receive mentoring during the holidays.</p>
<p>John Bosco Okoboi, head teacher at the COBURWAS primary school in Kyangwali, said the rate of teenage girls getting pregnant was very high, at almost 90 percent. “But the best is not to condemn them. We discuss with them about the consequences,” he said.</p>
<p>Sarah Tuyiramye, a refugee from Rwanda who is about to complete her secondary education, said most of her friends never finished primary school.</p>
<p>“They dropped out, and some have three children. I think if I had not been given this chance, I would be married,” she said.</p>
<p>SCIENCE EDUCATION<br />
Meanwhile, in Gisozi, a suburb of Rwanda’s capital Kigali, bright girls are able to study science at a special school run by the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE).</p>
<p>The Mastercard Foundation pays fees for girls from poor families, and has enabled more than 2,000 to attend the school since 1999.</p>
<p>Alumni visit the school to mentor pupils, and have also set up an orphanage for abandoned girl children and others born of rape.</p>
<p>Students at the school donate part of their allowance to help pay fees for other needy girls in their communities.</p>
<p>Marie Aimee Keza has just finished her exams at FAWE, and wants to go to university to become a pilot. As the only child in her family of six to attend school, Keza has motivated other girls in her neighbourhood to work hard and stay in school.</p>
<p>“The country should continue investing in girls and motivate them through education,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “When I heard that during the (Rwandan) genocide, there were some women who rescued people from the killers, I said, ‘I want to be one of those women in society’.”</p>
<p>Dorothy Nyambi from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences said Africa is short of female role models. “It is not enough to give opportunities to girls when men are not opening up (to equality),” she said.</p>
<p>Sharmi Surianarain, who connects African Leadership Academy graduates and other Mastercard Foundation scholars with opportunities for making a difference across the continent, said one former student had gone on to start a school in Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>“After they graduate, girls give more to the community, so investing in girls is fundamental,” she said. ($1 = 3,655.0000 Ugandan shillings) (Reporting by Pius Sawa; editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women&#8217;s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit news.trust.org/)</p>


How African refugees are helping girls learn to avoid abuse, early marriage

<p><strong><em><span class="fn author-name">Nic Cheeseman |</span> University of Birmingham</em></strong></p>
<p>There is much to celebrate as the world marks International Day of Democracy. The last year has seen important democratic breakthroughs in Africa. In Gambia an entrenched autocrat was forced from power. In Ghana, a sitting president lost an election for the first time.</p>
<p>In just the last few weeks, Kenya has also joined the club of precedent- setting nations, after the Supreme Court ruled that the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta was illegal and must be held again. Not only was this a first in Kenya, it was also the first time that the election of a sitting president had been overturned by the judiciary in Africa.</p>
<p>These changes reflect a broader trend in sub-Saharan Africa and much of the world. An increasing number of countries are holding multiparty elections. And an increasing proportion of these states have witnessed a transfer of power from one party or leader to another.</p>
<p>It’s true that more elections are now being held than at any time in human history. But recent highlights in Gambia, Ghana and Kenya mask a problematic reality, namely that the expansion of multi-party politics has often gone hand-in-hand with political and economic exclusion. Over the past five years, the level of political repression and economic inequality has increased in Africa. In turn, this has called into question the extent of the continent’s democratic gains.</p>
<h2>Rising repression</h2>
<p>In recent times high levels of repression have been witnessed across much of the continent. These include the arrest of opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, as he campaigned against his defeat in the 2016 presidential election in Uganda. Also, in Kenya there were a high number of human rights violations when security forces cracked down on opposition protests during the election.</p>
<p>According to Freedom House, an American think tank that rates the level of freedom in every country in the world, the quality of civil liberties in Africa has fallen every year for a decade. Seven out of the 15 countries that showed the biggest deterioration in the quality of their political environment over the last 12 months were African. They are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Niger, South Sudan, and Zambia. Next year, Tanzania may well join that list.</p>
<p>Other forms of political exclusion are also prevalent. Rwanda leads the world on female legislative representation while Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda also perform well on this metric. But very few women are ever elected in the continent’s largest states such as Angola, Nigeria and the DRC.</p>
<p>Minority groups often suffer a similar fate. In Botswana, a state often lauded as one of those leading on democratic rights in Africa, the indigenous San community have been largely excluded from the political process. Similarly, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer citizens typically find that their human rights are undermined. Fortunately, this is not true of countries with more progressive constitutions such as South Africa.</p>
<h2>Rising inequality</h2>
<p>In many states, political exclusion has gone hand in hand with rising economic inequality. As a result the relative poverty – the gap between the rich and the poor – is growing. This is despite the fact that the level of absolute poverty has fallen in a number of countries.</p>
<p>In other words, serious developmental gains are occurring at the same time that other forms of economic exclusion are intensifying.</p>
<p>One of the most stunning facts about the continent is that the <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi">Human Development Index</a> – a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators – shows that</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://africasacountry.com/2017/01/african-inequality-rising/">every country in Africa is today less equal than it was in 2010</a>.</p></blockquote>
<p>More worryingly, there is no evidence that democracies are performing better than authoritarian systems on this issue. If anything, the reverse is true. Indeed, one of the most intriguing paradoxes of African democracy is that it is those countries that are most democratic that are most unequal. Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, three of the continent’s most secure democracies, feature the highest levels of inequality in the world.</p>
<p>The combination of political and economic exclusion in Africa is important for intrinsic and instrumental reasons. Intrinsically, democracy is failing to deliver if it is not helping the worst as much as the best off. Instrumentally, the combination of economic and political exclusion increases the risk that political grievances will develop into instability.</p>
<h2>Building a more inclusive world</h2>
<p>One reason that democratisation has not always reduced the degree of exclusion is that political systems in Africa, much like the rest of the world, tend not to feature inclusive political arrangements.</p>
<p>The continent only features a handful of states that are federal or feature high levels of political devolution. These include Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Sudan. Moreover, even within this small sample the ability of opposition parties to get elected at the sub-national level has often been limited, especially in Ethiopia and Sudan. As a result, individuals and groups that lose out in the race for national office rarely enjoy the kind of local self-government that might make them feel that they have a stake in the political system.</p>
<p>Institutional mechanisms to ensure a form of power sharing are also rare. By and large African states are presidential and highly majoritarian. They also do not feature constitutional provisions that guarantee minorities and losing parties a seat at the table.</p>
<p>Indeed, Burundi is currently the only country that comes close to the consociational “ideal type” of inclusive politics outlined by the famous political scientist Arendt Lijphart. But even there the authoritarian bent of President Pierre Nkurunziza has undermined both the letter and the spirit of the country’s carefully designed constitution.</p>
<p>Absent political representation, and with so few checks and balances on the exercise of power, it is unsurprising that minorities and opposition groups get such a raw deal. Of course, this is not to say that political inclusion is a cure-all: there are many established democracies with less exclusive political arrangements that have failed to reduce economic inequality. But until African political systems become less majoritarian and do a better job of protecting the rights and interests of minorities, the true benefits of democratic government are unlikely to be realised.</p>
<p><em>This article was first published in The Conversation.</em></p>


Op-Ed: Democratic breakthroughs in Africa – time to celebrate but worries still linger

<p>HAMBURG, July 8 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday promised $639 million in aid to feed people left starving because of drought and conflict in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen.</p>
<p>Trump&#8217;s pledge came during a working session of the G20 summit of world leaders in Hamburg, providing a &#8220;godsend&#8221; to the United Nations&#8217; World Food Programme, the group&#8217;s executive director, David Beasley, told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War Two,&#8221; said Beasley, a Republican and former South Carolina governor who was nominated by Trump to head the U.N. agency fighting hunger worldwide.</p>
<p>The new funding brings to over $1.8 billion aid promised by the United States for fiscal year 2017 for the crises in the four countries, where the United Nations has estimated more than 30 million people need urgent food assistance.</p>
<p><strong>READ: </strong><a href="http://cnbc.africa/newsletters/nigeria/2017/07/07/op-ed-nigerias-acting-president-yemi-osinbajo-g20-time-move-beyond-pledges-back-africas-future/">Op-ed: Nigeria&#8217;s Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to G20: It&#8217;s time to move beyond pledges to back Africa&#8217;s future</a></p>
<p>&#8220;With this new assistance, the United States is providing additional emergency food and nutrition assistance, life-saving medical care, improved sanitation, emergency shelter and protection for those who have been affected by conflict,&#8221; USAID said in a statement.</p>
<p>Rob Jenkins, acting head of the USAID&#8217;s bureau of democracy, conflict and humanitarian assistance, said of the funding, over $191 million would go to Yemen, $199 million to South Sudan, $121 million to Nigeria and almost $126 million for Somalia.</p>
<p>Conflict in all four countries had made it difficult to reach some communities in need of food, he noted.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re in a dire situation right now,&#8221; said Jenkins, adding that USAID was also concerned with the situation in southern Ethiopia.</p>
<p>&#8220;The situation in southern Ethiopia fortunately does not rise to the dire situation of the other four, but the situation is deteriorating and might very well be catastrophic without additional interventions,&#8221; he said, adding that Washington had already provided some $252 million this year to Ethiopia, &#8220;but the needs continue to grow.&#8221;</p>
<p>Beasley said the U.S. funding was about a third of what the WFP estimated was required this year to deal with urgent food needs in the four countries in crisis as well as in other areas.</p>
<p>The WFP estimates that 109 million people around the world will need food assistance this year, up from 80 million last year, with 10 of the 13 worst-affected zones stemming from wars and &#8220;man-made&#8221; crises, Beasley said.</p>
<p>&#8220;We estimated that if we didn&#8217;t receive the funding we needed immediately that 400,000 to 600,000 children would be dying in the next four months,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Trump&#8217;s announcement came after his administration proposed sharp cuts in funding for the U.S. State Department and other humanitarian missions as part of his &#8220;America First&#8221; policy.</p>
<p>Beasley said the agency had worked hard with the White House and the U.S. government to secure the funding, but Trump would insist that other countries contributed more as well.</p>
<p>A WFP spokesman said Germany recently pledged an additional 200 million euros for food relief. (Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington; editing by John Stonestreet)</p>
<p>© Thomson Reuters 2017 All rights reserved</p>


G20: US President Trump has just agreed to aid for Africa

<p><span class="articleLocation">JUBA/GENEVA</span> (Reuters) &#8211; South Sudan is no longer classified as being in famine, although 45,000 people in Jonglei and Unity states are expected to remain in famine-like conditions and the situation is still very critical, a U.N.-backed food security report said on Wednesday.<span id="midArticle_byline"></span></p>
<p>An estimated 6 million people, half the population, are expected to be severely food insecure this month and next, the report said.</p>
<p>The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report was based on a survey by a working group including government and U.N. officials.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Alison Williams)</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>


South Sudan no longer classified as in famine: UN-backed report

<p>DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) &#8211; The world pays the least attention to humanitarian crises when they force Africans from their homes, dashing hopes of peace, hindering reconstruction and increasing the risk of radicalization, an aid agency said on Thursday.</p>
<p>Central African Republic topped the Norwegian Refugee Council&#8217;s (NRC) annual list of neglected displacement crises.</p>
<p>It was followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, the Palestinian territories, Ukraine, Myanmar and Somalia.</p>
<p>&#8220;The fact that most of these people do not turn up at our doorsteps gives us no right to close our eyes to their suffering, and does not remove our responsibility to assist,&#8221; the NRC&#8217;s Secretary General Jan Egeland said in a statement.</p>
<p>&#8220;Economic support to alleviate humanitarian crises must be given based on needs, and not &#8230; geopolitical interests.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>BLIND EYE</strong></p>
<p>Limited political will to achieve peace, scant media attention and a lack of aid funding mean crises are likely to worsen and trigger even more displacement, the NRC said.</p>
<p>Chronic conflict involving militias in countries such as Central African Republic and Congo could drive more and more people into armed groups, said Richard Skretteberg of the NRC.</p>
<p>&#8220;When you combine limited state presence in much of these countries, mass displacement, and a lack of protection and aid for civilians, this creates a fertile breeding ground for radicalization,&#8221; he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.</p>
<p>&#8220;Rebuilding and working towards peace are difficult when so many people are displaced,&#8221; the NRC senior adviser added.</p>
<p>One in five Central Africans &#8211; about a million people &#8211; is displaced, and at least 100,000 were newly uprooted last month in some of the worst violence between the mainly Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian militias since conflict began in 2013.</p>
<p>Spreading ethnic violence in Congo has forced more than 1.5 million people to flee their homes within the country this year &#8211; more than triple the number uprooted within Syria and five times the number within Iraq, according to the NRC.</p>
<p>The United Nations has received just a fifth of the $812.5 million sought in the humanitarian appeal for Congo this year, and 25 percent of the $400 million requested for Central African Republic, the U.N.&#8217;s Financial Tracking Service (FTS) shows.</p>
<p>Africa&#8217;s arid Sahel belt, which stretches from Senegal to Eritrea and lies south of the Sahara desert, topped the NRC&#8217;s index last year, followed by Yemen and Libya.</p>
<p>(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women&#8217;s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience.</p>


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