The Fragility Of Sudan

This book uncovers how colonial administrators, postcolonial governments and international aid agencies have promoted stability and their own visions of the rule of law in Sudan.

South Sudan is the third most vulnerable country to climate change in the world, and one of the most politically fragile. Rising from the Depths illustrates how South Sudan can leverage its water resources to prepare for climate change and advance national peace and development.

In 2005, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in Kenya between the National Congress Party and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. The intention of the agreement was to bring peace to Sudan after more than half a century of civil war, but has it succeeded?

It has long been recognized that the new state of South Sudan would face daunting challenges. The world's newest nation is also one of its poorest—the result of negligible investment in its people and infrastructure over many decades by the erstwhile governing authority in Khartoum. War ravaged the country nearly continuously since 1955, costing over 2 million lives. South Sudan's state-building effort, moreover, started from a rudimentary institutional base, having inherited few functional governance systems. What governance structures existed were confined to former garrison towns such as Juba, the capital, in a territory roughly equivalent to Afghanistan with a population of 11.8 million people. Adding to the difficulty is the very real risk of renewed conflict with Sudan and the chicanery on the part of the government there to stir up trouble in its southern neighbor. In short, South Sudan was bound to face struggles.Despite the steep road South Sudan must climb, the performance of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan (RSS) since independence in July 2011 has made it steeper still, disappointing citizens and international partners alike. President Salva Kiir himself has decried the diversion of public monies—perhaps as much as $4 billion—by leading government and military officials. Perceptions are widespread of senior government malfeasance, self-interest, and disregard for citizen priorities. Meanwhile, state authority remains heavily centralized within the executive branch, where decisions are often made opaquely and without consultation or oversight. This has been matched by regular reports of repression by the army and the police, conveying an impression that government officials see their role as one of self-enrichment and maintaining power rather than provision of services to citizens.Ethnic divisions, long exploited by Khartoum during the war, have been deepened by the perception of Dinka dominance of the RSS. These fears have been reinforced by dubious state and national elections in 2010 that favored candidates from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. In some cases, this has translated into open insurgency followed by brutal reprisals by the Sudan People's Liberation Army. Hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in the process, particularly in Jonglei state but also in pockets of rising insecurity around the country.The new country is not without assets. It took control of developed oil fields that are estimated to yield 350,000 barrels per day and annual net oil export revenues (at full potential) of roughly $9 billion for the government. The population in South Sudan, furthermore, is nothing if not resilient, having endured years of hardship, isolation, and war. Much of the expansive territory is highly fertile for agricultural production, though only 4 percent is currently under cultivation. Moreover, South Sudan enjoys a font of international good will, with key partners in East Africa, Europe, and the United States having provided extensive humanitarian assistance to South Sudan throughout the war and overwhelmingly endorsed the new state's quest for independence and membership at the United Nations.Efforts to meet the young state's many challenges will fail, however, without greater trust and social cohesion between the new government and citizens. State-society relations provide the foundation for any state. If this foundation is strong, built on the principles of trust and legitimacy, then even poor countries can be stable and withstand intense external threats. Conversely, if the foundation is weak, then instability will persist irrespective of government revenue flows, the strength of the security sector, or the maneuvers of any external adversary. Strengthening state-society relations, then, is an imperative for the state-building and stabilization agenda of South Sudan.

Data deficiencies contribute to state fragility and exacerbate fragile states’ already limited capacity to provide basic services, public security and rule of law. The lack of robust, good quality data can also have a disabling effect on government efforts to manage political conflict, and indeed can worsen conflict, since violent settings pose substantial challenges to knowledge generation, capture and application. In short, in fragile contexts the need for reliable evidence at all levels is perhaps greater than anywhere else. The development of sustainable and professional ‘data-literate’ stakeholders who are able to produce and increase the quality and accessibility of official statistics can contribute to improved development outcomes. Good quality and reliable statistics are also required to track the progress of development policies through the monitoring of performance indicators and targets and to ensure that public resources are achieving results. While data alone cannot have a transformative effect without the right contextual incentives it is an essential and necessary prerequisite for greater accountability and more efficient decision-making. This volume explores methods and insights for data collection and use in fragile contexts, with a focus on Sudan. It begins by posing several questions on the political economy of data, and then sets out a framework for assessing the validity, reliability, and potential impact of data on decision-making in a fragile country. It also sets out insights on challenges associated with fragile states, derived from recent data collected in Sudan: the 2014/2015 DFID Sudan household survey. This includes data-driven analysis of topics including female genital mutilation, public service delivery, and the interplay of governance, service quality, and state legitimacy.

How do a legal order and the rule of law develop in a war-torn state? Using his field research in Sudan, the author uncovers how colonial administrators, postcolonial governments and international aid agencies have used legal tools and resources to promote stability and their own visions of the rule of law amid political violence and war in Sudan. Tracing the dramatic development of three forms of legal politics - colonial, authoritarian and humanitarian - this book contributes to a growing body of scholarship on law in authoritarian regimes and on human rights and legal empowerment programs in the Global South. Refuting the conventional wisdom of a legal vacuum in failed states, this book reveals how law matters deeply even in the most extreme cases of states still fighting for political stability.

The need for evidence-based decision making at all levels of government is perhaps greatest in fragile settings. Data deficiencies contribute to state fragility and exacerbate constraints on the capacity to provide basic services, public security, and the rule of law. The lack of robust, good-quality data can also have a disabling effect on government efforts to manage political conflict. Indeed, the lack of data can worsen conflict, since violent settings pose substantial challenges to knowledge generation, capture, andapplication. The development of sustainable and professional data-literate stakeholders who are able to produce and increase the quality and accessibility of official statistics can help to improve development outcomes. Goodquality and reliable statistics are required to track the progress of development policies through the monitoring of performance indicators and targets and to ensure that public resources are achieving results. Although reliable data alone cannot have a transformative effect without the right contextual incentives, they constitute an essential prerequisite for greater accountability and more efficient decision making. Data-Driven Decision Making in Fragile Contexts: Evidence from Sudanexplores methods and insights for datacollection and use in fragile contexts, with a focus on findings from Sudan. It begins by posing several questions on the political economy of data and then sets out a framework for assessing the validity, reliability, and potential impact of data on decision making in fragile settings. It then provides insights regarding the challenges associated with data-driven decision making in Sudan, derived from the 2014-15 United Kingdom's Department for International Development Sudanese household survey. Featured are data-driven analyses of diverse topics, from public service delivery to the interplay of governance, trust, andstate legitimacy. As the data revolution and the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals herald an increasing need to solicit the perceptions and experiences of program beneficiaries, the impetus to develop and deploy good quality survey instruments will increase. This volume provides an important proof of concept that this type ofendeavor is both feasible and useful in fragile contexts and, in combination with other important data collection tools, can be effectively utilized to enrich the evidence base of decision making in these settings.

States of Fragility 2020 sets a policy agenda for fragility at a critical turning point: the final countdown on Agenda 2030 is at hand, and the pandemic has reversed hard-fought gains. This report examines fragility as a story in two parts: the global state of fragility that existed before COVID-19, and the dramatic impact the pandemic is having on that landscape.