On Friday, the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission issued preliminary results from the vote on independence. As expected, 98.6 percent of nearly 4 million voters opted to secede from the north, with which the southerners had uneasily coexisted in Africa's largest country. Southern Sudan will become only the third new member of the United Nations in the last decade -- and that includes a late entry by Switzerland, which previously foreswore membership of any international bodies. New countries usually face daunting challenges, but past experience suggests there is reason to hope that independence will boost the quality of life for the region's people.
There is, of course, plenty of room for improvement. Most of the 8 million residents of Southern Sudan live in poverty. The vast majority are subsistence farmers, and surveys reported by the region's census authority suggest only half of them live in a household that used any cash at all in the past week. Ten percent of children die before their first birthday and less than half of primary-school-aged kids are enrolled in classes.
COMMENTS (0)
More...
The World Bank's latest analysis of Southern Sudan's finances, meanwhile, concludes that the region's "budget and financial management concerns are acute." Oil wealth has sparked some economic growth over the past 10 years. And if the country splits from the north, it is likely to owe relatively little in debt. But that is about the only good news facing the finance ministry. Government revenues have been inadequate to deal with the challenges of finding employment for demobilizing members of the army, let alone to start building the infrastructure of a modern state.
The broader economic picture isn't much brighter. About half of Southern Sudan's GDP, as well as a full 99.9 percent of its government revenues, comes from its $5 billion-a-year oil exports. Even if oil output doubles by 2035, as some predict, that still won't be enough to provide the engine for a viable economy and government services beyond the most basic. If the south is going to improve quality of life for its people, it will have to focus on rapid economic diversification.
To foster broad-based growth in agriculture, manufacturing and services, the most important short-term prescription is for the South Sudanese to avoid fighting with their former compatriots in the north -- a potential conflict that looms particularly large over Abyei province, which has seen its own referendum on whether to join the north or the south delayed. A cautionary tale is on display in neighboring Eritrea, which fought a brutal two-year border war with former co-state Ethiopia in the late 1990s; its average incomes are now below their level at independence from Ethiopia in 1993.
SUBJECTS:
(0)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE