South Sudan: enhancing locally-led humanitarian aid through digital tools
monday.com Emergency Response Team
The event
South Sudan, located in East-Central Africa, faces numerous climate-related and public health challenges, including recurring floods, droughts, disease outbreaks, and socioeconomic difficulties. These challenges are compounded by environmental degradation, poor infrastructure, and ongoing conflicts.
The country's heavy dependence on agriculture further exacerbates the impact of disasters on food security and livelihoods, creating a complex web of vulnerabilities. Addressing these requires robust disaster preparedness and response measures, as well as long-term strategies to manage both natural and human-made disasters.
The response
In 2024, the Emergency Response Team (ERT) deployed to South Sudan to support RISE (Consortium for a Resilient, Innovative, and Sustainable South Sudan), a coalition of community-based organizations. The mission was to equip them with digital tools to collect and share vital information, mobilize resources, and collaborate more effectively.
Recognizing the critical role of National and Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) in South Sudan's remote areas, these organizations are often the first responders during disasters, providing immediate relief and support to affected communities. Their local presence and understanding of community dynamics enable them to mobilize resources and coordinate relief efforts effectively, contributing significantly to community resilience and recovery
The ERT sought to focus on local solutions and expertise, emphasizing the importance of leveraging existing capacities. This approach promotes individual, community, and systemic resilience, ensuring that humanitarian responses are both equitable and effective.
RISE South Sudan consortium
In the remote regions of South Sudan, local National NGOs and CBOs, including youth-led and women-led groups, have united under the RISE South Sudan consortium. This consortium represents grassroots empowerment and local leadership in the humanitarian landscape of South Sudan. It champions the localization of humanitarian aid by advocating for equitable representation, decision-making power, and resource allocation for CBOs. As first responders, they offer essential services such as emergency food and shelter, healthcare, WASH, and livelihood support.
Digital aid
Digital tools have become indispensable in enhancing the capabilities of CBOs throughout the emergency lifecycle, including in the preparedness, response, and recovery phases. These tools facilitate efficient communication, coordination, and information dissemination, enabling real-time resource mobilization and coordinated efforts. They also allow organizations to collect and analyze data effectively, gaining insights into local needs and assets to adjust response strategies accordingly.
Aligned with the mission of monday.com’s Emergency Response Team, digital tools are pivotal in enhancing the impact of our partners. They streamline information management, save time, and empower responders to allocate resources more effectively. Our support for the RISE consortium included two key activities aimed at enhancing operational effectiveness and maximizing the impact of our tools:
- Training workshops for RISE member organizations: Training sessions to equip participants with knowledge and practical skills on monday.com's emergency response solutions. Participants learned best practices for digital transformation, data management strategies, workflow optimization, and collaborative project management tailored to emergency response scenarios. These workshops fostered ownership and empowered RISE members to leverage digital tools in their humanitarian operations.
- Practical application sessions: Collaborating closely with RISE teams on the ground, the ERT facilitated hands-on exercises such as household food security & livelihood assessments, using monday.com's tools to collect, analyze, and visualize critical data related to humanitarian needs. These sessions enabled participants to adapt the tools to their realities and gain firsthand experience in using the platform to address specific challenges and make informed decisions in dynamic emergency response environments.
The Impact
The work within the RISE consortium has minimized localization challenges and enhanced collaboration opportunities. Leveraging technology for resource mobilization and even fundraising has expanded their support network, diversified resources, and ensured ongoing assistance to affected communities. Centralized communication channels provided by digital tools facilitate data collection, analysis, visualization, and collaboration. empowering decision-makers within the consortium. Additionally, these tools create capacity-building opportunities in data management for both members and non-members in the humanitarian sector.
Having access to such digital tools enables the RISE consortium to enhance their preparedness and reduce disaster risk for their communities. By working together on a collaborative tool, they have the ability to independently collect data from their respective communities while sharing the outcomes and results with the consortium members. This way, they can analyze and visualize the results and recognize trends and potential hazards in time.
With digital tools, community-based organizations can assess vulnerabilities in their communities in advance, recognize potential adverse changes, and prepare relevant programs and interventions to strengthen capacities in their communities, thereby mitigating the effects of disasters. They can also manage their tailored interventions and measure their impacts with these digital tools, allowing them to have a centralized location to get a holistic and comprehensive picture of their preparedness mechanisms.
