SQUEAC Report, Aweil West County, Northern Bahr el Ghazal State,2015

Aweil West County is one of 5 counties in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State, in South Sudan. The county is bordered by Aweil North County to the north, Aweil East County to the east, Aweil South County to the southeast, Aweil Central County to the south and Raga County in Western Bahr el Ghazal State to the west. The official population figures from the 2008 South Sudanese census is 166, 217, with the latest figures issues by RSS being 222,742. The proportion of children under 5 years old is 18%. The main ethnic group in Northern Bahr el Ghazal region is Dinka who are comprised of many independent but interlinked clans.

Concern Worldwide has been supporting the implementation of the nutrition programmes in NBeG state since 2000. As an active member of the Nutrition Cluster, CWW has been working to support the CHD who have a limited capacity and do not have adequate resources to run the programmes by themselves. CWW liaises with UNICEF and WFP for nutrition supplies.

While CWW’s nutritional interventions coincide with improved malnutrition rates in the county, a SMART survey conducted in April 2014 show that Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate (using WFH method) for the pre-harvest period was still above the acceptable WHO emergency thresholds of 15%. The GAM prevalence was 17% and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) with/without oedema was 1.8%. In the post-harvest survey conducted in October 2014, the GAM rate was 13.9% and the SAM rate was 2.5%. Even with the improved post-harvest GAM figures, Aweil West remains highly vulnerable to shocks, which would have a large effect on the nutritional status of children.

The SQUEAC Methodology is designed to be conducted in three phases which include Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3. Stage 1 involves identifying areas of low and high coverage as well as reasons for coverage failure using routine program data, any other existing data and qualitative data. Stage 2 involves, confirming the location of areas of high and low coverage and the reasons for coverage failure identified in stage 1. This is done using the small studies, small surveys and small-area surveys. Stage 3 involves providing an estimate of overall program coverage using Bayesian techniques. The SQUEAC methodology was designed to be low resource in terms of financial and human resources.