Food insecurity has been a persistent and recurrent crisis in South Sudan since independence in 2011. Early conditions fluctuated between stressed and crisis levels, with localized emergencies along the Sudan border. Although good rainfall and harvests in 2012 brought temporary improvements, the civil war that began in December 2013 severely disrupted agriculture, displaced millions, and sharply worsened food security. By 2014 and 2015, about one third of the population faced crisis or emergency levels.
Conditions deteriorated further in 2016 amid conflict, economic collapse, high food prices, and restricted humanitarian access. In February 2017, famine was declared in parts of Unity and Northern Bahr el Ghazal States.