JUBA, March 6 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Wednesday blamed the food insecurity situation in South Sudan on the lack of peace and conflict in the East African country.

Meshack Malo, the FAO representative in South Sudan, called on South Sudanese to embrace peace if the country is to be food secure.

"It is clear that one of the main consequences and reasons South Sudan is food insecure is not that there are no resources needed, particularly in agriculture, to do with land, water, and space, but that it is about conflict and lack of peace," Malo said in Juba, South Sudan's capital, during the release of a report on the impact of conflict on food security and livelihoods in the country.

He said two major levels are important for peacebuilding so that South Sudan can exit food aid and be able to produce its food for its people. He denoted the first level as the aspect of the national level that requires governance at the national level where issues of elections, political stability, and economy emerge, with the second level requiring a lot of work that can also be obtained at the community level to invest in peace and the result is food security.

According to the FAO, food insecurity in South Sudan is driven by cascading shocks including conflict and insecurity, a macroeconomic crisis caused by the depreciation of the local currency, and conflict in Sudan. Other shocks, according to the agency, include persistent low agricultural production levels and the cumulative effects of prolonged years of asset depletion that continue to erode the coping capacities of households and the loss of livelihoods.

Pia Philip Michael, South Sudan's undersecretary in the Ministry of Peace Building, said the main driver of food insecurity is intercommunal violence and called on South Sudanese to refrain from violence to be food secure. "The thinking in South Sudan that somebody should bring us peace is not working; South Sudanese have asked for peace many times, but they have not received it because they are expecting it from somebody else," Philip said.

According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification conducted in September and October 2023, an estimated 5.83 million people, or 46 percent of the population in South Sudan, were expected to face Crisis or worse, acute food insecurity between September and November 2023. Enditem

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