Entries by Augustino Ting Mayai

Although fraught with numerous implementation issues, the Revitalized Agreement for the Resolution of Conflict (RARCSS) has been credited with bringing relative stability to South Sudan since 20181. The Agreement mandated the creation of a Unity Government, setting the stage for the Transitional Period, which is due to end in 2023. The moment of truth for this peace agreement is the holding of elections proscribed for the end of the Transitional Period. Although the elections mandated…

Publication Summary Local content requirements promote national capacity, employment, economic diversification, and economic growth (Kazzazi and Nouri 2012, Tordo et al., 2013). Local content develops capacities that link the oil and gas sector to other industries. While over 80% of the oil and gas sector’s workforce is South Sudanese, little is known about their earning levels, experience, and educational attainment, compared to their expatriate colleagues (Tiitmamer, 2015). This paper analyzes human resources data from two…

In December 2020, the South Sudan National Dialogue Steering Committee (NDSC) published its concluding report regarding the National Dialogue (ND) process.  This final report summarizes the Committee’s main findings and respective recommendations. A vast majority of the views criticizes the SPLM and its leaders for a colossal failure to govern South Sudan. The NDSC asserts that this failure is rooted in a power struggle and political stalemate, which must be broken if the country is…

Introduction On December 14, 2016, South Sudan’s President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, declared the National Dialogue (ND) process and appointed eminent personalities and civil society representatives to lead it. At the time, the second spell of the civil conflict was raging in parts of Upper Nile, Equatoria, and Bahr el Ghazal regions. Numerous attempts by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to salvage the 2015 Agreement for the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS) proved…

The population dynamics presented in this paper have serious implications for South Sudan’s human development and political stability. Using census data and UN estimates, this briefing paper highlights South Sudan’s recent demographic patterns and trends, starting in 2008 into 2050. The projections presented are based on an exponential growth regime, and the analysis seeks to provide key insights for the aid community to stimulate their thinking on the nature and level of support likely to…

Abstract This analysis draws from security and state spending data to measure the human security experience in South Sudan. The results show amore volatile security environment following independence. Defence expenditure and human security, as measured in the number of insecurity episodes, are unrelated. Descriptive evidence indicates that human security and security expenditure tend to vary unpredictablyover time, a signal that security sector spending is unresponsive to the country’s security predicaments. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)…

Abstract: South Sudan was embroiled in a civil war from mid-December 2013 to mid-September 2018. Nearly 400,000 people died, and several million were displaced. The economy nearly collapsed as the nation’s output was severely reduced, causing inflation to soar. While prior research on the immediate humanitarian crisis in South Sudan has focused on forced displacement and food insecurity, there is little information available about the long-term impact the war had on human capital accumulation in…

Background: Decades of war left the Republic of South Sudan with a fragile health system that has remained deprived of resources since the country’s independence. The authors describe the coverage of interventions for women’s and children’s health in Upper Nile and Unity states, and explore factors that affected service provision during aprotracted conflict. Methods: The authors conducted a case study using a desk review of publicly available literature since 2013 and a secondary analysis of…

In 2005, South Sudan adopted a minimum of 25 percent women representation quota in its interim constitution. Following the independence, this quota was maintained, with the Transitional Constitution devoting three clauses to this important policy.  In 2013, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the governing party, proposed raising this quota to increase women’s participation in public life. In the recently signed peace agreement, known as the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), this…

The trends reported in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) show a growing food security crisis in South Sudan, with a high proportion of people sliding into crisis andemergency food insecurity level. The underlying fears concern an emerging acute lack of food in almost all parts of the country, with millions of people, many of them rural women and children, affected. At the peak of the lean season in August to September 2016, Northern…