Axe to fall on aid amid South Sudan famine

During a nine-day escape from war through one-metre high swamp water, a mother had to pause to give birth to her baby daughter.

Oxfam Australia chief executive Helen Szoke met Nyageng Gatwak, aged 40, during a trip to a town called Nyal in Unity State near a famine declared area in South Sudan last week.

On the long journey with other families, the mother-of-eight gave birth on the side of the Sudd Swamp to a daughter named Nyadak which means "born in crisis".

"The women were showing us where their toenails were coming off from being in the water so long," Dr Szoke told AAP.

Dr Szoke says she's haunted by the encounter with the resilient and courageous mother but is heartbroken the federal government on Tuesday will reportedly announce further cuts to foreign aid in the budget.

The Turnbull government is expected to divert money from its foreign aid budget to deliver extra funding to the country's security agencies, including the Australian Federal Police, domestic spy agency ASIO and ASIS, the overseas secret intelligence agency.

The coalition government has cut $11.3 billion from foreign aid since coming to power and the program in Africa has been gutted, although the government recently announced $20 million for the hunger crisis in South Sudan.

Aid groups are in a race against time before the wet season sets in.

"As a wealthy country, we cannot turn our backs on the poorest of the poor - the scale of need across the world is too immense," Dr Szoke said.

Oxfam has set up a canoe project to give people who have fled to the swamp islands a means of transport to access food and medical treatment in the town.

Dr Szoke said some kids living on the swamp islands were using the canoes as a school bus to get to class.

Authorities have officially declared more than 100,000 people in two counties of South Sudan's Unity state are experiencing famine, while an additional one million are on the brink of starvation.

The South Sudan famine is the result of a prolonged civil war.

South Sudan is rich in oil resources, but six years after independence from neighbouring Sudan, there are only 200km of paved roads in a nation with an area of 619,745 square km.