LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE MANILA

8 Mendiola St. San Miguel, Manila

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND EFFORTS OF

SOUTH SUDAN

Submitted by:
Frances Ann M. Capalongan
BSA – 11

Submitted to:
Mr. Giovanni Barbajera

April 7, 2019
 The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are designed to achieve a better

and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges that everyone is

experiencing, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental

degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice. Stated in United Nations Development

Program (UNDP), the overreaching goal of the SDGs is poverty eradication that focuses

on five Ps - people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. SDGs place a strong

focus on equity, expressed most frequently as “no one will be left behind.” Furthermore,

the SDGs success will not be achieved simply by reaching numerical averages. Rather

true success of the SDGs will be realized by improving the lives of the most

disadvantaged and hardest to reach populations. The SDGs agenda recognizes that

each country has primary responsibility for its own economic and social development.

The SDGs were developed through extensive consultation with all levels of society to

constitute a comprehensive development plan. With the SDGs, a country like South

Sudan has the opportunity to act upon its vision for the future.

The Republic of South Sudan or South Sudan for short, is a landlocked country

located at the North-eastern part of Africa. They have an estimated population of 13

million people as of 2018 with the population growth rate hovering around 2.7%. They

are one of the richest countries in all Africa with a beautiful blend of several ethnic and

racial groups and they are also blessed with abundance natural resources. However,

despite the abundance of natural resources, South Sudan continuously experiencing

serious challenges that need to be addressed. The challenges that lie ahead for South

Sudan include; reducing poverty, illiteracy, infrastructure bottlenecks and improving the

lack of unity, security and governance.

 With the different challenges mentioned above, South Sudan has various SDGs

focusing on how they will respond to the different concerns in order to achieve

sustainable life. They are committed to making advances to the achievement of the

development goals through the implementation of national development strategy. First

development goal that they have is, “end poverty in all its forms” because according to

Africaw (2018), South Sudan remains one of the poorest countries in the world with over

60% of its population living below international poverty line ($1.90 a day). This goal is

not just about lack of income and resources, its manifestations include hunger and

malnutrition, lack of education and other basic services, social discrimination and

exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision-making. “Zero hunger” is

included in the said goal since malnutrition remains a big challenge globally and is a big

contributor to child mortality in South Sudan. Poor food security is also causing millions

of children to be stunted, or too short for their ages, due to severe malnutrition. The

prevalence of severely undernourished children was 131 per 1000 and the proportion of

the population that was below the minimum level of dietary energy consumption stood

at 47%. Investments in agriculture are crucial to increasing the capacity for agricultural

productivity and sustainable food production systems are necessary to help alleviate

hunger that can result on reducing poverty.

Obtaining a quality education is the foundation to creating sustainable

development. In addition to improving quality of life, access to inclusive education can

help equip country with the tools required to develop innovative solutions to the world’s

greatest problems. Based on Brookings (2011), another problem that South Sudan is

facing today is the limited access to education that hindrance the country on attaining
sustainable livelihood. Secure access to education is included in their SDGs since it is

estimated that over 70% of their population is illiterate. In other words, just about 30% of

the total population of South Sudan above age 15 can read and write which is one of

the worst literacy rates in Africa today. The reason behind this problem are due to the

poor conditions of schools and quite a number of children had never attended a school

or had to leave school because of many years of civil war and the lack of adequately

trained teachers because many trained teachers have left South Sudan or have become

internally displaced and only 45% of the teachers working in South Sudan are

considered trained and 40% are primary school leavers. The government recognizes

the importance of education in the national development and has now placed the sector

among top five priority program areas in the country.

According to The Borgen Project (2017), the Republic of South Sudan remains

one of the HIV/AIDS killing zones in the world with adult prevalence rate of 3.1 percent.

Besides the deadly HIV/AIDS, meningococcal meningitis, dengue fever, hepatitis A and

E, Africa trypanosomiasis, etc., continue to threaten several live in South Sudan today.

Therefore, ensure environmental sustainability to have good health and well-being are

another development goal of South Sudan. It includes fighting against the numerous

diseases that are the common killers associated with the people in the said country and

clean water and sanitation for all for the reason that it is an essential part of the world

we want to live in since poor water quality and inadequate sanitation is a major cause of

disease and can negatively impact food security, livelihood choices and educational

opportunities for poor families. As such, the government and development partners are

investing a lot of resources to improve the health of the population.

 The long years of bloody conflicts have destroyed a lot in South Sudan. Sadly,

there seems to be no end to the numerous clashes. It was also clearly stated in

Brookings, over 3 million people have been forced out of their homes. Some have fled

to neighboring countries and having lost their livelihoods, almost all of them need

shelter, food and medical assistance. And just like most other African countries today,

corruption and poor governance continue to tear South Sudan apart. Thus, promoting

just, peaceful and inclusive society are designed to achieve sustainable life. Access to

justice for all and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels to ensure that

the elected leaders can govern a country in a right and proper way is one of their goals.

The threats of violence and lack of security in rural areas are important to address to

promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development. Human rights

abuses are also rampant in South Sudan. To tackle these challenges and build a more

peaceful, inclusive societies, there needs to be more efficient and transparent

regulations put in place and comprehensive, realistic government budgets.

Furthermore, in line with Africaw, the state of infrastructure in Southern Sudan is

also appalling. The communication and transportation networks in the region are

incredibly poor. For a region with 619,700 sq km, Southern Sudan has less than 50 km

of paved roads. This is possibly the worst in the world. In fact, over 60 percent of the

said country is inaccessible by road especially during the rainy season. This affects

every sector of the economy, just like some farmers are not able to transport their far

produce to the markets and perishable goods just go waste and also several people die

from diseases and these are all because of lack of transportation. Building resilient

infrastructure, promoting sustainable industrialization and fostering innovation are

important drivers of economic development and employment. Investments in

infrastructure – transport, irrigation, energy and information and communication

technology – are crucial to achieving sustainable development and empowering

communities in many countries. It has long been recognized that growth in productivity

and incomes, and improvements in health and education outcomes require investment

in infrastructure. Without these, innovation and development will not happen, therefore

there needs to be investment in order to increase efficiency, productivity and

connections between people.

Strengthen the global partnership is their last development goal since there are

several challenges that the country is facing with respect to developing global

partnerships, which include the high cost of Information and Communication

Technology (ICT) equipment and services, inadequate distribution of ICT services and

infrastructure, poor IT support, and low access to medicine. These challenges are in

part responsible for the fairly high levels of unemployment among people. However,

inclusive partnerships enable South Sudan to have an access on things that are lacking

in their country. Lastly, it enables them to achieve sustainable economic development

that will uplift the lives of every Sudanese. (African Health Observatory, 2018).

It is abundantly clear that the extended armed conflicts in South Sudan have

significant direct and indirect impacts on the quality and level of the country past

performance and progress towards achieving those SDGs. To attain optimal

performance and progress to achieve the SDGs, the country and the people should

need to surmount a wide scope range of challenges, but this requires commitment of

the resources required and efficient and effective planning, coordination, true
partnership approach between government and non-government organizations, private

sector as well as the international community. South Sudan needs to strengthen their

efforts on creating and implementing strategies towards achieving peaceful resolution to

the conflict because this can help the country to have more opportunities in order to

build solid and enhanced progress to achieve sustainable life.

 References

African Health Observatory (2018). Issues and challenges – Other MDGs. Retrieved

from

http://www.aho.afro.who.int/profiles_information/index.php/South_Sudan:Issues_

and_challenges_-_Other_MDGs

Africaw (2018). Major problems facing South Sudan today. Retrieved from

https://www.africaw.com/major-problems-facing-south-sudan-today

Brookings (2011). South Sudan: Time to focus on Challenges. Retrieved from

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/opinions/south-sudan-time-

to-focus-on-challenges/amp/

The Borgen Project (2017). Five Facts about Development Projects in South Sudan.

Retrieved from https://borgenproject.org/five-facts-about-development-projects-

in-south-sudan/

United Nations Development Program (n.d.), Sustainable Development Goals.

Retrieved

fromhttp://www.ss.undp.org/content/south_sudan/en/home/sustainabledevelopm

entgoals.h ml

UN SDG Action Campaign (2019). Retrieved from

https://sdgactioncampaign.org/2019/02/01/sustainable-development-goals-of-

immediate-concern-to-south-sudanese-and-their-families/