‘Children can go to school … farmers can get their produce to markets’
How roads and a bridge built by the World Food Programme in South Sudan are empowering communities
Think ‘World Food Programme’ and an image may come to mind: planes airdropping food in areas of food insecurity that are difficult to reach. There is more to achieving zero hunger than that, however.
Zero hunger is United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal #2. Set to be achieved by 2030, it calls for resilience-building. This means roads, bridges, warehouses, airstrips, offices, accommodation and much more. And here’s where WFP Engineering comes into play.
Yeshi Jangchuck has been working in WFP’s engineering team in South Sudan since 2018. Originally from Bhutan, he has 18 years’ experience in civil engineering.
Educated in India and Australia, in 2000 Yeshi started his career as a civil servant in Bhutan’s Ministry of Works and Human Settlement. There he served in different capacities for nearly 16 years. In 2015, he started working as a structural engineer with UN agencies and multinational companies in countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh and South Sudan.
“My first assignment with WFP was to supervise the construction of the 120-metre Kuajok bridge in Gogrial state in South Sudan,” says Yeshi. The youngest country in the world, South Sudan is struggling with food insecurity, mass displacement of people and economic collapse.
A lack of infrastructure further exacerbates problems. When the rainy season starts, roads become impassable, cutting off entire communities and leaving WFP no option other than to drop food from the air (because of their cost and relative lack of efficiency, airdrops are a last resort).
To facilitate humanitarian operations in the country on the ground, WFP Engineering has completed 11 road-rehabilitation projects totalling more than 520 km, as well as the Kuajok bridge. WFP is now constructing other roads in Yambio including the Saura-Li Rangu and Nzara-Li Rangu roads, with support from the Dutch government.
“Working in South Sudan comes with the challenges and shortcomings that are generally associated with working in a post-conflict area,” says Yeshi.
“However, as the security situation is improving, things are visibly getting better,” says Yeshi. “For instance for the Kuajok bridge project, we didn’t have one single security incident over the entire project duration of about one-and-a-half years,”
The Kuajok bridge was officially opened on 4 June as part of the US$24.8 million (€20.3m) European Union-funded project to construct and maintain bridge and road infrastructure in Warrap and Western Bahr el Ghazal states.
“The construction project management and technical supervision were carried out by WFP in-house,” says Yeshi. “It was a a great achievement for us and for the local community, as it serves as a critical road link and has significantly reduced the travel time between the main towns in the area”.
The bridge was described by South Sudan’s minister of roads and bridges, Rebecca Okwaci, as “an investment in various sectors of South Sudan including education, agriculture, health, transport and tourism”.
Yeshi says: “Infrastructure, especially roads, can bring tremendous value to WFP, and even more so to the countries where we work”. He adds: “They allow faster, more efficient delivery of aid to people in need but that is not all. Roads are often referred to as the ‘engine of growth’ — and rightly so. A reliable road network underpins developments in all other sectors. It enables children to go to school, patients to reach health facilities and farmers to get their produce to markets.”
Hostile areas
Yeshi believes engineering in the humanitarian sector has a unique attraction. “While the application of engineering principles per se doesn’t change, there are differences in the processes and methods of implementation,” he says.
“Works are mostly implemented in response to emergency situations and as a result they are almost always highly time-sensitive.” This often requires “working in remote and often hostile areas where access to resources is limited.”
Yeshi feels that his experience in the humanitarian sector has enriched his capacity. “It is a privilege and pleasure to be part of the WFP Engineering team. We work as one cohesive unit ever willing to help and support each other anytime, across countries and cultures,” he says.
“Humanitarian work entails commitment and sacrifices. It is often much more than a nine-to-five or business-as-usual type of job. But if you can weather that storm, it is a rewarding job both professionally and personally. Nothing brings you more satisfaction and happiness than being able to go that extra mile to help people who are perhaps less privileged than you.”
