Mike McKie's South Sudan blog
Mike spent part of his childhood on a sugar plantation south of Khartoum, near the market town of Kosti that sits on the river Nile, where he regularly fished. After leaving Sudan as a boy, he returned some 20 years later in a professional capacity, engaged at first with humanitarian operations in Darfur and later with non-government agencies in southern Sudan. On leaving Sudan for the second time, Mike worked with the United Nations (UN) in the West Bank before being deployed by the Stabilisation Unit to Afghanistan and, most recently, Pakistan.
Returning to what is now the world's newest republic, Mike will be supporting United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP), providing stabilisation and governance expertise to their current DFID funded State (province) Stabilisation Programme, ultimately helping the government of South Sudan improve service delivery. Challenges abound and he looking forward to them - as well as having a third crack at fishing the Nile for its mighty perch!!
South Sudan blog 2: The right advice
Whilst no-one is deliberately trying to kill you in South Sudan, the real hazard is the health hazard. The myriad natural resources and the idea of a blessed land I described in my first note, is thwarted by pretty much every conceivable tropical killer disease known to man. Lucky for me, I’ve been jabbed and protected from pretty much all of them. There is no inoculation for malaria, however, only prophylaxis and treatment.
Any of you that have had malaria will know that it is a bit like having ‘flu on steroids. I’ve had it a few times in my life and I’ve also been hospitalised by it (it was a leaving present from my last foray in South Sudan). It caught me two weeks after the end of my deployment. I was visiting my parents, entered the living room and collapsed. Trust me; it is no fun knowing that you have cerebral malaria and that you might die. So I’m going to personalise this communiqué, as I recently recovered from yet another bout of malaria.
So what’s the stabilisation angle? I think in terms of basic service delivery as contributing to political stability. I look at health and education as key stability (and poverty) indicators, amongst others. It’s the nexus of what I reflect on as social contract building – government accountability to deliver services and rule through law; balanced by citizen accountability to contribute to sustaining a viable economy, protected by law.
Unsurprisingly, given that South Sudan has just emerged from decades of civil war, poverty indicators are amongst the worst in the world. The population currently do not (yet) feel aggrieved that there is no viable health service – there is a general perception and understanding amongst the South Sudanese that the government needs more time to deliver comprehensive social protection. Those of us engaged with stabilisation out here – not only the Brits – consider that this concessionary window will close in the next three to five years. So it becomes imperative that the basics of social protection, particularly health and education, tangibly emerge in that period. They help stabilise the polity.
Let’s get to the rub of my bleating: when it cost me $90 to be treated for malaria in South Sudan; how on earth does one expect the 50% plus of South Sudanese living way below the poverty line (less than US$1 per day) let alone those on a $1.50 per day to afford it? In my previous experience I have managed large-scale health interventions in several countries of Asia and Africa. In all those countries, basic service delivery is pathetic and it causes grievance. No prizes for guessing they’re not stable.
In South Sudan the political economy is shattered. The government cannot as yet extend its reach to adequately protect its citizens, let alone rule through law. In a built state, there is a legal framework through which the government and citizens govern. That’s governance to you and me – governments need to be able to rule through laws that citizens have been a part of making. It’s social contract 101, the deal. So if there is limited law through which people can hold the private sector accountable, why imagine that privateers will be any more accountable to their punters? Publicly funded and privately delivered is an altogether different prospect of course, but don’t be fooled that is being posited.
Basic services need to be thought of in terms of contributing to political stability. Privateers are in it for profit, pure and simple. When it comes to a question of health service delivery, who would challenge the precept that a population that can access free healthcare is less temperamental than those that can’t? It’s not the cure-all (no pun intended) but it contributes unerringly to political stability – socio-economic development, of which health is a part, makes up a corner of a social protection triangle; governance and security being the other two. Get them in relative equilibrium and it’s more likely that a stable country will emerge.
There will always be privateers seeking a quick buck, but it is reprehensible to declare that people have ‘access to healthcare’ when privateers are noted in health assessments. Whilst the times are changing for us in the UK, let’s not forget that in the post-war period it was free access to healthcare, inter alia, that took an element of fear out of people’s existence. So why would somewhere like South Sudan be considered in any way different?!
Many of us get this simple equation. “Us” includes UK and early thinking is already pointing to influencing South Sudan health policy to ensure that, at the very least, women and children under five years of age – the most vulnerable – can access free healthcare. Multilaterals need to “get it” too.
Multilaterals have a responsibility to help South Sudan emerge as a viable state. It starts with the right advice and with the right advice; perhaps South Sudan’s time might indeed be theirs, as our Dinka man from my first instalment so emphatically hopes.
South Sudan Blog 1: “It is our time.”
When I left South Sudan in 2007, Juba, the new republic’s capital, was the picture of what many reflect on as post-conflict. Roads that had not been maintained for as long as the civil war had raged, no electricity, no water, let alone schools and clinics. There were also camps for the myriad international workers, clambering to secure suitable property to call office and home. I left after two hard years, shattered, as was so typical of all who worked there at the time. So against this backdrop, why would I want to come back? Well aside from that perch I’m after, there’s an old saying locally that once you have drunk from the Nile you always come back. Not quite Speyside or Cognac eau de vie, I hasten to add, but a similar sentiment I think.
Friends from my non-government days have kept me posted on changes over the last few years. Some are actually in government now. On arrival, Juba International Airport was still chaotic, but at least this time I had to get a stamp in my passport and I also had to go through a curious form of customs. It was, indeed, change. Getting out of the airport and on the road, I was struck that it was actually a road. I posted on my social network that day “Juba. RoSS. Tarmac. Wow!” And Juba really is a wow. Who would have imagined that a nascent state, emerging from decades of civil war, could mobilise such dramatic change in just four short years – albeit with external assistance.
There are now six 1,000 megawatt generators providing power (quite regular), piped water to large tracts of the town (quite clean), tarmac roads with pavement (quite smooth), solar street lamps (quite impressive), children making their way to school (quite purposefully), markets, bars, clubs and restaurants (quite bustling). Unbelievable and quite a bench-mark, if this really is the new republic’s bench-mark for how it wishes to continue. But I’m quite impressed regardless.
So will this change mature in to a stable state? That’s the million dollar question of course. On the one hand it’s possible to be optimistic. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), back in the mid 1990’s, from their Secretariat HQ on the shores of Kenya’s Lake Naivasha, conceived their plan for local government, to be delivered once a political settlement with Khartoum brought peace. This is forward thinking stuff. At United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to whom I am seconded, they have been supporting the development of local government since 2003; and the UK has supported much of that effort I might add. Laudable, particularly as it was a Brit that helped Khartoum and the SPLM forge the comprehensive peace in 2005.
Taking my other hand into consideration however, in our field of work, we all too often see civil war ending and a predatory state emerging. Huge promises are made, the state invariably fails its people, poverty deepens, the security apparatus strengthens – and not for the good of the people, but to sure up power – fear and distrust of government deepens and instability emerges.
Is that the Republic of South Sudan’s future? Oligarchy is good word at this stage in their history, as is that age-old friend, greed. And this is one of the most resource rich countries in the world. There’s oil, gold, diamonds, an incredibly rich flora and fauna, you name it and South Sudan has it. This makes my hand tremble. We’ve seen it before in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. Qui ca change and all that.
But then I meet a 27 year old Dinka man (all seven feet of him) who proudly informs that he has just finished primary school. I asked him why he went to school so late on and he simply replied, “It is our time.”
