This base line survey was conducted for the project “Enhancing resilience through improved food security, disaster risk reduction and peaceful co-existence in South and East Darfur.” The baseline was designed to collect data in the targeted communities in South and East Darfur State to assess the situation before the start of the project and determine the benchmarks for the designed project indicators. The baseline used mixed methods for data collection, including: desk review of project documents, individual interviews with household leaders using structured questionaires, FGDs with representatives from different groups in the communities, KIIs with institutional representatives.
The targeted areas in East and South Darfur are suffering from acute and chronic malnutrition. It is widespread and poses a significant public health problem, caused by acute food insecurity, unstable livelihoods, limited health services, poor hygiene practices and the lack of access to adequate safe drinking water and sanitation practices.
Women and children travel far distance to fetch water. During the rainy season, people may get poor quality water, which negatively affects their health. The government institutions have very poor capacity and lack the required logistics to provide good and sustainable water supply.
Women and girls are vulnerable to GBV, especially when they go far distances seeking different services such as water collection, firewood, farming, marketing and markets.
Women also face a very high burden, as they are responsible and participating in all household chores such as childcare, farming, fetching water, and transporting products to markets. This negatively affects children's nutrition and hygiene practices and exacerbates malnutrition. On other hand they have a limited access to resources and income-generating activities, and do not share any responsibilities in community structure, where men alone control and have access of most resources and have more decision-making power than women.
847,126 people in South Darfur and 124,351 in East Darfur are in IPC Phase 3 or higher and unable to meet their immediate needs. Kass and East Jebel Mara in South Darfur have the highest number of people experiencing acute food insecurity at 25% and 35% respectively, which need urgent intervention to contribute in reduction of acute food insecurity caused by currency devaluation, inflation, and local conflict is hitting both states.