EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report demonstrates how providing information to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in South Sudan can dramatically increase their health, safety and well-being and make a positive impact on their lives in the midst of an ongoing conflict. Since the most recent fighting broke out in South Sudan on December 15, 2013, the number of IDPs has grown exponentially. According to a recent Situation Report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), there are approximately 1.5 million people displaced by violence in South Sudan, 378,000 of whom have fled to other countries while the remaining 1,122,000 have been displaced within the country. As a result, South Sudan has one of the highest concentrations of IDPs in the world today, giving it the dubious distinction of being at the forefront of a growing global dilemma involving displaced persons.
IDPs need life-saving information in a wide variety of areas ranging from daily survival needs and security issues to information associated with relocation, reintegration, and reconciliation. Meeting these needs is not only a humanitarian imperative, but also a fundamental right of all IDPs. The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement specifically emphasizes the right of IDPs to make informed decisions on their own behalf, and calls attention to the life saving capacity of objective, practical, and relevant information. In Africa, these convictions are reinforced further by ongoing efforts to ratify the Kampala Convention, the first regional treaty in the world with the aim of protecting and assisting IDPs. South Sudan became a signatory to the Kampala Convention in 2013.
In this context, Internews was requested by the Protection Cluster and other humanitarian agencies to provide humanitarian information to IDPs at the Protection of Civilians (POC) site at Tong Ping, which sits in the capital city of Juba. Relief agencies initially registered approximately 33,000 IDPs at the site; the newest registration in June 2014 found there were 14,000. There have been serious concerns over the ability to meet the information needs of IDPs while coordinating and generally improving the communications strategies of the various agencies involved. Internews responded to the request and launched a unique Humanitarian Information Service (HIS) audio program that focuses on life-saving “news-you-can-use.” From program content and format to method of delivery, every aspect of the HIS program has been developed by working together with humanitarian agencies and communities themselves to meet the information needs unique to the Tong Ping site.
