An Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation (IAHE) was conducted in South Sudan in April 2015 under the auspices of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Transformative Agenda for the global reform of humanitarian action in large-scale emergencies. This was the first such evaluation of a response to a conflict situation and complex political emergency.
The crisis is now clearly becoming protracted and therefore requires a complete review and revision of strategic purpose. The emergency is merging with the long-term pattern of conflict and underdevelopment in South Sudan and a key lesson has been that there is no clear choice between relief and development (or resilience, recovery, etc.). Inter-agency operations in South Sudan would benefit from a fresh paradigm that can nimbly move between these approaches.