OPINION: What it will take to turn development corner in S. Sudan

Over 11 years ago, while attending South Sudan’s Independence Day celebrations in Juba on July 9, 2011, the then World Bank Vice-President Obiageli Ezekwesli chronicled the event in a blog entitled ‘Eye Witness to History.’  She was here alongside a parade of heads of state, foreign dignitaries, national leaders and South Sudanese women and men marking the birth of a new African country. In one passage of her vivid description of the day, she noted ‘just caught the eyes of a particularly ebullient young woman and imagined the deep joy of freedom that brought out that poignant look of ‘all things are possible’ in her’.

That prevailing sentiment about new and bright horizons awaiting generations of South Sudanese youth was not without good foundation: The South Sudanese had achieved self-determination after decades of national struggle and their newly won freedom would enable them to pursue their own development aspirations. The international community had rallied behind the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, supported the 2011 referendum, and pledged significant volumes of development assistance following independence. The country had an impressively large land mass (equal to the size of the United Kingdom, Germany and Holland combined), a small population and a plentiful endowment of natural resources including water, wildlife, oil, and mineral wealth.

Since that historic day, South Sudan has had a tumultuous journey: veering off into two episodes of civil war in 2013 and 2016 resulting in massive population displacement and loss of life; entering into two peace agreements to restore stability and national unity; forming the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity in 2020 after the signing of the second peace agreement in 2018; and processing two extensions of this latter agreement. The country’s detour into large-scale conflict over a five-year period had tremendous consequences for its human capital and economic development. It is estimated by the World Bank that its GDP per capita in 2018 was only one-third of the level that it could have achieved under a non-conflict scenario.

With the recent adoption of a roadmap by the parties to the 2018 peace agreement, with a stated objective of extending the end of the transitional period for a third time to February 2025 (subject to the expected consent of the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission and the ratification of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly), South Sudan is facing yet another test on its path to graduating from transitional status. It will have to exert significant efforts to complete the major pending elements of the 2018 peace agreement namely the constitution-making process, the integration of the armed forces and the necessary legal and institutional requirements to organize an open and fair election process. At the same time, it will have to focus its attention on addressing humanitarian issues related to widespread food insecurity and continued violence; and on pursuing critical development agendas.

This focus on the triple nexus of ‘peace – humanitarian – development’ assistance or the ‘PHD agenda’ as it has been termed recently by the donor coordination community in Juba is rightly placed. Without peace and stability, humanitarian assistance is exceedingly difficult to deliver. With no effective development work, instability and humanitarian crises persist – including the daily struggles of millions of South Sudanese households to survive and make ends meet. Slow progress on all fronts erodes public confidence in government effectiveness. Within this framework, what will it take to turn the development corner in South Sudan? How will the South Sudanese deliver on the objectives embedded in their revised National Development Strategy (R-NDS)?

Turning the corner towards a more accelerated development path will involve an important precondition, a genuine ambition to realize the vision embedded in the R-NDS, and a serious focus on advancing vital short, medium, and longer-term agendas. The precondition is naturally the effective implementation of the roadmap and a successful end to the transitional period. This milestone can only be reached through a vigorous push on all fronts (peace, humanitarian, and development) by the senior leadership and all key stakeholders within the South Sudanese Government and society at large.

The essential vision of the R-NDS rests on the idea of capitalizing on South Sudan’s existing natural wealth (i.e. oil, minerals, cultivable land, livestock, water, nature and wildlife) to drive institutional development; economic growth and diversification; human capital accumulation and infrastructure development. This very development idea was promoted early on by South Sudan’s founder Dr. John Garang de Mabior who argued that oil revenues should be used to ‘fuel the engine of agricultural development’ and to strengthen basic service delivery for all segments of society. The central challenge for the Government now is how it can move expeditiously towards using and developing these abundant natural assets for the benefit of broader development goals. For this idea to succeed, it will require not only enthusiastic Government ownership but also a well-integrated and carefully planned approach across different parts of the public sector.   

Of the short, medium, and longer-term policy agendas to enable such transformational change, four are critically important:

Institution-building and Economic Policymaking – Strengthening the capacity, stability and transparency of key economic institutions is essential for effective economic management and public financial management reforms. Success in this critical area will have positive cascading effects: better public spending will strengthen the social contract between state and society especially in rural areas; stronger management of public finances, ensuring civil servants are paid better and more regularly, will improve overall Government performance; enhanced management of oil revenues will improve access to state-led health and education services; and a more stable macroeconomic environment will spur on greater private sector investment. Some important pending Government actions to promote these agendas include: the passing of the Public Financial Management and Accountability Amendment Act; appointing the Board and the CEO of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Authority; and joining the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). After pushing ahead with reform measures like these, implementation then will be the real test.

Growth and Economic Diversification – Boosting growth and economic diversification to generate jobs, raise incomes, reduce poverty, and reduce over-reliance on oil are important policy agendas. In the short and medium terms, leveraging untapped natural resources and promoting external trade are well-advised approaches to pursue. South Sudan cultivates only four percent of its arable land; possesses an estimated 38 million heads of livestock (one of the biggest populations in Africa); owns abundant minerals including gold, cobalt, and zinc; and is home to one of the largest animal migrations in the world. Investing responsibly in developing these natural assets and taking them to scale, particularly available agricultural land, offers the prospect of generating broad-based job growth and diversifying the country’s economy. South Sudan also borders six countries, is a member of the East African Community and recently joined the African Continental Free Trade Area. These linkages provide important export opportunities for South Sudanese agri-business producers and other private actors. On this last agenda, the Government could work on streamlining regulatory and licensing requirements to allow small-to-medium businesses to further capitalize on these trade connections.

Human Capital – Investing in human capital by improving the coverage and quality of education and health services is one of the single most valuable long-term policy agendas for South Sudan – as it is for all countries. The scale of the current challenge seems quite daunting: the illiteracy rate is around 70 percent, 60 percent of children are out of school, and young mothers face a staggeringly high risk of mortality when becoming pregnant. Improvements in these pivotal areas for development will certainly take time (it took South Korea 25 years to reduce its illiteracy rate from 78 percent in 1945 to 12.4 percent in 1970) but it is crucially important to begin this process now. The significantly higher allocation in the draft 2023 national budget for education is one good sign. Yet budget allocations do not translate automatically to full budget execution and the educational authorities will have to monitor budget performance closely with the Ministry of Finance and Planning and State Governments. Given the significance of human capital for development and poverty-reduction, the World Bank is expanding its investments in health, education, and social protection in South Sudan.

Infrastructure Development – A necessary determinant of better living standards and private sector growth is the availability of critical infrastructure to supply widespread access to electricity, water, transport (road and inland waterways) and digital networks. In all these sectors, South Sudan is trailing behind most countries. Only 6 percent of the population has access to electricity and road density is around 15 km per 1,000 km squared. Without reliable rural roads linking productive areas to market centers and trade routes, transforming the agricultural sector into an engine for economic growth, job creation and food security will not be feasible.  Given the scale of the country’s infrastructure needs and the current financing gap, what is the most appropriate way to pr oceed? Clearly, not everything can be done at once, obliging the Government to develop a public investment management plan to help prioritize those investments with the largest development impact. In terms of funding these investments, national oil revenues and development assistance from multilateral and bilateral donors have so far been two sources of financing. In this regard, the Government’s current ‘oil for roads’ program could be reviewed with an eye towards improving its effectiveness. Other feasible options include developing infrastructure through public-private partnerships and regional infrastructure initiatives. To attract more private sector interest in infrastructure development, the Government could start working on establishing a new and comprehensive legal framework for public private partnerships (PPPs).

Looking ahead at the second decade of its independence, South Sudan can lay the groundwork for lifting itself out of transitional status and move on to the next stage of its economic development. The ingredients for making this national yearning a reality are a mixture of peace, stability, vision, effective governance, and the backing of the international community. There are no easy fixes. Yet South Sudan can draw inspiration from the fact that other countries in similar situations were able to navigate this journey and demonstrate that inclusive development remains the ‘art of the possible’. In its role as a long-term development partner, the World Bank remains committed to supporting South Sudan’s efforts to create this positive change for itself and to build a brighter future for generations to come.