Flood Risk Management and Climate Resilience in South Sudan
In November 2024, SETAC began work on the largest and most complex engagement in our twenty-year history. The Regional Climate Resilience Programme — commissioned by the Ministry of Water and Irrigation of South Sudan and funded by the World Bank — is a USD 2.2 million assignment to support flood risk management planning and infrastructure delivery across some of South Sudan’s most vulnerable communities.
This article explains what the programme involves, why it matters, and what it represents for SETAC and for East Africa’s engineering sector.
The Scale of the Problem
South Sudan experiences some of the most severe flooding in Africa. In 2021 and 2022, flooding affected over one million people, displacing communities and destroying livelihoods across the country. Climate projections suggest these events will become more frequent and more severe. The Nile basin catchments that drain into South Sudan are changing in ways that existing infrastructure was not designed to accommodate.
The government of South Sudan, with World Bank support, recognised that addressing this required not justemergency response, but long-term climate infrastructure planning and investment. SETAC was selected to lead the technical consultancy underpinning that investment.
What SETAC is Delivering
The programme spans multiple disciplines simultaneously: our survey teams are conducting topographic and geotechnical investigations at project sites across Bor, Maban, Torit, and other intervention areas. Our
hydrology specialists are building hydraulic models of flood risk across the relevant catchments. Our
environmental and social team is collecting baseline data, facilitating community consultations, and preparing Environmental and Social Management Plans. And our design engineers are developing engineering designs for flood control structures — including levees, drainage systems, retention basins, and nature-based solutions — that will reduce flood risk for the communities we are serving.
What makes this programme distinctive is not just its scale, but its ambition. SETAC is not simply designing flood defences — we are building the analytical and planning framework that will guide South Sudan’s flood risk management investment for years to come. That means capacity building for local water institutions, knowledge transfer to government engineers, and the development of long-term flood risk management plans that can be implemented with or without continued international support.
