Summary of needs: In 2025, over 5.5 million people will require urgent protection support due to conflict, displacement and climate crises. Economic hardship and cultural stigmas further marginalize survivors, limiting available support. Women and children are at increased risk of GBV, including sexual assault and intimate partner abuse. Conflict and displacement expose over 2.3 million people to heightened risks of theft, eviction and property destruction. Minority groups, people with disabilities and displaced individuals often face discrimination and lack essential resources and documentation. Armed checkpoints and roadblocks along key routes severely hinder freedom of movement, restricting access to services. Nearly 20,000 children remain separated, unaccompanied or missing, jeopardizing their safety. Arrivals from Sudan strain local services, raise tensions with resident communities and increase humanitarian needs.
Response strategy: The Protection Cluster will prioritize localized emergency response and resilience-building in close coordination with authorities. Mobile and static activities will support people with specific needs, enabling rapid response in emergencies. Protection assistance, including cash-based support, will address diverse needs beyond child protection, HLP and GBV with strengthened referral pathways. The cluster will focus on enhancing protection risk monitoring, improving access to essential protection services and community-based protection systems and fostering resilience through partnerships with local actors. The cluster will reinforce community structures and collaborate with peace and development actors on peacebuilding, PSEA and community empowerment. The centrality of protection will underpin all actions – guiding risk reduction, technical support and advocacy for protection. Unified protection messages informed by the Protection Risk Monitoring System (PRMS) will raise awareness, while engagement with the Government will strengthen local ownership and sustainable outcomes. The cluster will integrate a gender analysis into protection risk monitoring to inform targeted interventions to address the specific needs of women, girls, men and boys and promote gender equality.
Targeting and prioritization: The Area of Responsibility (AoR) adopts a community-centred approach, using the PRMS to assess 15 globally recognized protection risks guided by the Protection Analytical Framework. The AoR gathers insights through interviews, focus group discussions and risk assessments to identify people who face significant risks in specific locations. Guided by the HCT’s strategic direction, the AoR will prioritize areas with priority levels 1, 2 and 3, focusing on case management, community-based protection, capacity-building and advocacy.
Promoting accountable and inclusive programming: Continuous needs assessments incorporate input from affected people through community consultations and the PRMS. This feedback guides project design to ensure relevance and inclusivity. During implementation, the cluster works with local community structures to support their role in protection activities. Regular feedback from communities during monitoring allows the cluster to adjust interventions as needs change, supporting accountable and responsive programming.
Protection Sectoral People in Needs 2025
Protection Sectoral Severity of Needs 2025
Protection Sectoral People Targeted 2025
3.8.1 General protection
3.8.2 Child protection
Summary of needs: In 2025, South Sudan will continue to experience a protracted child protection crisis, particularly in conflict-affected and underserved areas across the country. Key child protection issues include family separation, recruitment into armed groups, physical and sexual violence, exploitation, and psychosocial distress, particularly among adolescent girls. Children, especially in urban areas. experience high levels of exploitation and resort to enrollment in gangs as an extreme coping mechanism. Children with disabilities and child survivors of GBV, particularly girls, are disproportionately at risk with limited access to essential services such as health, psychosocial support and legal aid.
Response strategy: The Child Protection AoR will focus on delivering child-centred interventions such as comprehensive case management, material support, mental health and psychosocial services and cash-based initiatives. It will emphasize collaboration across sectors and engage communities, the Government and partners to optimize resources. The AoR will also prioritize strengthening child protection systems at the community level, especially in hard-to-reach areas. Ensuring the safety, dignity and well-being of the most vulnerable children is essential to safeguarding their rights in South Sudan’s challenging humanitarian context. The cluster will also provide child protection in emergencies training for community leaders and partners, leveraging local structures for swift mobilization. This approach ensures effective, scalable interventions for South Sudan’s most vulnerable children.
Targeting and prioritization: Targeting is based on vulnerability criteria, focusing on those exposed to family separation, recruitment by armed groups, violence (including GBV), exploitation and psychosocial distress. The AoR will prioritize the voices of affected people – particularly children, adolescents, youth and young women.
3.8.3 Gender-based violence
Summary of needs: GBV is rampant in South Sudan, driven by harmful social norms and systemic gender inequality, severely affecting the safety and rights of women and girls. The PRMS reported GBV as the main protection risk in 38 per cent of the 2,497 communities surveyed in 2024. The ISNA revealed that 36 per cent of women and girls avoid certain areas due to safety concerns, while 53 per cent of households face barriers to accessing vital services. A survey of GBV experts found a limited availability of core GBV services in 35 per cent of the counties. Multilayer data analysis estimates that 2.75 million people will need GBV interventions in 2025. The 2025 severity classification highlights the urgent need for action, with 23 counties at Severity 4 and 53 at Severity 3. Displaced individuals, returnees and those living in poverty are disproportionately affected, enduring severe physical, sexual and psychological abuse.
Response strategy: The GBV AoR Strategy will focus on prevention, risk mitigation and response. GBV prevention aims to challenge harmful norms through community programmes such as "SASA", “community cares programme” and "engaging men and boys through accountable practices”. It also includes community engagement initiatives such as awareness-raising on GBV and PSEA. GBV risk mitigation involves integrating GBV-related actions into other clusters’ responses, multisectoral safety audits and distribution of dignity kits and fuel-efficient stoves. GBV response focuses on improving survivors' access to case management, psychosocial support, cash assistance, legal aid, safety and protection while enhancing the availability of safe houses, women and girls friendly spaces and GBV referral pathways. Improved GBV coordination and data analysis using the GBV Information Management Systems will guide programming and advocacy.
Targeting and prioritization: The GBV AoR response strategy employs both static and mobile service delivery to reach remote, underserved communities, prioritizing areas with severity levels 4 and 3 from the 2025 analysis. The response targets 571,732 beneficiaries including IDPs, returnees and resident communities on a needs basis. The 5W reporting mechanism will track interventions, supplemented by regular field visits and service mapping to ensure availability, identify gaps and maintain quality. The GBV AoR will adapt its programmes based on evolving needs. In 2025, $37.7 million is required to implement this response and reach the target beneficiaries. Strengthening community feedback mechanisms will also enhance decision-making and ownership, creating inclusive, empowering and effective GBV interventions.
3.8.4 Housing, land and property
Summary of needs: HLP remains a critical protection concern for 1.17 million people in need. The Sudan crisis and recent floods have resulted in an influx of people seeking safety and higher grounds. The most affected states are Central and Eastern Equatoria, Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity. HLP challenges have surged across the country due to illegal occupation, forced eviction, and land and property grabbing. Violations of HLP rights are associated with weak legal frameworks and institutions, inadequate implementation of policies, repressive cultural norms, lack of documentation, limited knowledge of HLP rights and inadequate legal aid services. Weaknesses in dispute resolution mechanisms also compound the risk of community conflicts. The vulnerability of women to GBV contributes to the violation of their HLP rights. Climate change and environmental challenges significantly affect HLP rights, especially for people in flood-affected areas. Failure to address HLP issues continues to hinder the achievement of durable solutions, especially regarding shelter and livelihoods.
Response strategy: Priority HLP interventions will include awareness-raising and information-sharing on HLP issues and rights, including those of women and people with disabilities, legal assistance and strengthening dispute resolution mechanisms. The AoR will support HLP actors to ensure effective implementation and strengthen their capacity to promote inclusive approaches for HLP prevention and response.
Targeting and prioritization The HLP AoR will ensure that responses are delivered through a people-centred approach, with affected communities adequately consulted and engaged in the programming. Through its strategy, the AoR will monitor the response plan to ensure that it meets the needs of the affected communities. The AoR will increase community engagement to ensure their voices are at the forefront of decision-making.
3.8.5 Mine action
Summary of needs: In South Sudan, 22 million m² of land is suspected to be contaminated with landmines, cluster munitions and other explosive ordnance (EO), affecting 2.4 million people. The highest contamination is in Greater Equatoria, Upper Nile and Jonglei, limiting access to humanitarian assistance, land for living and farming and other basic services. Children have been disproportionately affected, making up over 80 per cent of the casualties. Displaced people face heightened risks due to unfamiliarity with contaminated areas. The EO contamination persists after acute crises end, causing misalignment in mine action and inter-sectoral prioritization – e.g., Magwi County faces "extreme" mine action needs but ranks low in the inter-sectoral analysis.
Response strategy: The Mine Action AoR response strategy, aligned with the National Mine Action Strategy 2024-2028, uses static and mobile services to reach communities in severity levels 5 and 4. It focuses on EO risk education for high-risk groups and prioritizes clearance of high-impact contamination. The AoR ensures quality through strict reporting requirements and regular quality checks by the National Mine Action Authority and the United Nations Mine Action Services.
Targeting and prioritization: Mine action operators employ community liaison officers who engage with community members, leaders and EO victims. These officers gather information on EO, inform communities about mine action activities and serve as the first point of contact for complaints or suggestions. Input from affected communities is key to assessing the needs and impacts, informing prioritization. Notably, 95 per cent of mine action staff are South Sudanese, many from affected communities – further ensuring that perspectives of affected people are integrated throughout the humanitarian programme cycle.