South Sudan Archives - TalkAfrique

September 4, 2012

South Sudan Struggles to Meet demand for Education

World’s worst literacy rate
Enrollment soared after 2005 peace deal
Austerity measures threaten progress
Primary schools for adults too

YEI, 4 September 2012 (IRIN) – Five decades of war and upheaval in South Sudan has had an inevitable impact on education – almost three-quarters of adults in the world’s newest country are unable to read or write.

A recent report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) holds that less than 2 percent of the population has completed a primary school education.

“South Sudan is believed to have the worst literacy rate in the world, worse than Mali and Niger, which were the only ones close. [Adult literacy] currently sits at 27 percent, according to the latest statistics we have from 2009,” said Jessica Hjarrand, education specialist at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

A 2005 peace deal paved the way for South Sudan to secede from the north in July 2011. The country has since struggled to build an education system for its young and to educate the millions of adults who missed out on school during the war.

“There’re not enough schools. There’re certainly not enough teachers,” said Hjarrand. “Most of the teachers in South Sudan are primary school leavers.”

As a result, the quality of instruction is poor, Hjarrand continued. “They don’t know how to manage a classroom. They don’t know how to manage people with different needs in the classroom, let alone the content area and the skills you’re supposed to be passing down through education.”

Michael Adier Kuol, headmaster of Lomuku Primary School in Yei, a town in Central Equatoria State, concurred. “In the school where I’m teaching now, there are around 16 teachers, and all of them are untrained.”

Complicating matters is the fact that South Sudan has decided to switch from offering instruction in Arabic, which is associated with the north, to teaching in English – a challenge for most teachers and students.

Many education experts believe that children should first become literate in their mother tongues. “But it’s very difficult to do when you’ve got something like, I think, 66 languages in South Sudan, to have to develop materials for each of those languages,” Hjarrand said.

Keeping up with demand

After southern Sudan signed the 2005 peace agreement, its education programme, supported by international donors, underwent one of the world’s fasted reconstruction programmes, a recent study reports.

Between 2006 and 2010, the number of primary school students more than doubled, from 700,000 to 1.6 million, the study notes.

But even after the influx of international donations, the country’s school system does not yet have the resources to keep up with demand.

In a courtyard in Yei, children sit on makeshift benches under a tree as they recite the alphabet. “They are taught under the mango tree, not in a classroom,” said the teacher, John Wandera. “That is one challenge – lack of enough space for learning”

Lack of educational materials is another challenge, he said. Continue reading “South Sudan Struggles to Meet demand for Education”

July 20, 2012

South Sudan:The Most Dangerous Country to Give Birth

Decades of conflict and marginalization have left South Sudan the most dangerous country on earth in which to give birth.
For every 100,000 births in South Sudan, more than 2,000 mothers die. Ninety percent of women give birth away from formal medical facilities and without the help of professionally trained assistants.

One of the main causes of South Sudan’s high maternal mortality rate is a dearth of qualified birth attendants: during the civil wars that raged since the mid-1950s conducting the necessary formal medical training was all but impossible.

Now, seven years after a peace accord was signed, and a year after South Sudan gained independence from Sudan, things are beginning to change.

IRIN’s latest film, South Sudan – Birth of Nation, focuses on Juba Teaching Hospital’s new college of nursing and midwifery. Students here, drawn from all of the country’s 17 states, speak of their determination to take their new skills back to their villages to reduce the scourge of maternal mortality.

UN IRIN News

March 16, 2012March 16, 2012

George Clooney Arrested at Sudan Embassy

George Clooney has been arrested for civil disobedience during a demonstration outside Sudan’s embassy in Washington DC.

The actor was taking part in a protest to warn of a humanitarian crisis in the volatile border area between Sudan and South Sudan.

His father, Nick, was also detained during the demonstration.

George Clooney is a keen Sudan activist and has made a number of trips to the region.

The Hollywood star, his father and fellow activists were led away in handcuffs after reportedly ignoring repeated police warnings to leave the embassy grounds.

George Clooney gives evidence to US Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Secret Service spokesman George Oglivie told the BBC: “George Clooney was arrested for crossing a police line at the Sudan embassy and he’ll be transported to the Metropolitan police department second district.”

Also arrested, said Mr Oglivie, were Martin Luther King III, son of the civil rights leader; Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern; Virginia Democratic Congressman Jim Moran; and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People President Ben Jealous.

Clooney’s arrest comes a day after he met President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss the Sudan situation.

The actor recently secretly travelled across the border to the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, where his group apparently witnessed a rocket attack.

He told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week that what was happening in the region was “ominously similar” to the violence in Darfur.

The UN estimates that nearly 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million been displaced since the Darfur conflict broke out in 2003

Credit: BBC News

July 8, 2011July 8, 2011

South Sudan Becomes an Independent African Country

South Sudan has become the world’s newest nation, the climax of a process made possible by the 2005 peace deal that ended a long and bloody civil war.

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are among international dignitaries attending celebrations in the capital, Juba.

Sudan earlier became the first state to officially recognise its new neighbour.

The south’s independence follows decades of conflict with the north in which some 1.5 million people died.

Celebrations in Juba began at midnight (2100 GMT). A countdown clock in the city centre reached zero and the new national anthem was played on television.

South Sudan became the 193rd country recognised by the UN and the 54th UN member state in Africa.

The BBC’s Will Ross in Juba says the new country’s problems are being put aside for the night, and there is an air of great jubilation.

People are in the streets, cheering, waving South Sudan flags, banging drums and chanting the name of President Salva Kiir Mayardit, he adds.

A formal independence ceremony is due to be held later on Saturday.

The Speaker of the South Sudan Legislative Assembly, James Wani Igga, is expected to read out the Proclamation of the Independence of South Sudan at 1145 (0845 GMT). Minutes later Sudan’s national flag will be lowered and the new flag of South Sudan will be raised.

In addition to Mr Bashir and Mr Ban, attendees will include former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the US permanent representative to the UN, Susan Rice, and the head of the US military’s Africa Command, Gen Carter Ham.

Under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, a referendum was held on independence, which was favoured by more than 99% of voters.

The new country is rich in oil, but one of the least developed countries in the world, where one in seven children dies before the age of five.

Unresolved disputes between the north and south, particularly over the new border, have also raised the possibility of renewed conflict.

On Friday, Sudan’s Minister of Presidential Affairs, Bakri Hassan Saleh, announced that it recognised “the Republic of South Sudan as an independent state, according to the borders existing on 1 January 1956”, when Sudan gained independence from Britain.

‘Southern brothers’

President Bashir, who agreed the 2005 peace deal with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), stressed his country’s “readiness to work with our southern brothers and help them set up their state so that, God willing, this state will be stable and develop”.

“The co-operation between us will be excellent, particularly when it comes to marking and preserving the border so there is a movement of citizens and goods via this border,” he told journalists in Khartoum.

Fears of fresh conflict resurfaced after recent fighting in two border areas, Abyei and South Kordofan, which forced some 170,000 people from their homes.

But separate deals – and the withdrawal of rival forces from the border – have calmed tensions.

The UN Security Council has passed a resolution approving a new 7,000-strong peacekeeping force for South Sudan – but this is basically a rebranding of the force which was already in Sudan, mostly in the south.

Khartoum has said its mandate would not be renewed, leading the US to argue that the 1,000 UN troops should be allowed to remain in South Kordofan. The 1,000 troops in the disputed town of Abyei are to be replaced by 4,200 Ethiopian soldiers.

Our correspondent says keeping both the north and the south stable long after the celebratory parties have ended will be a mighty challenge.

The two sides must still decide on issues such as drawing up the new border and how to divide Sudan’s debts and oil wealth.

Analysts say the priority for Khartoum will be to negotiate a favourable deal on oil revenue, as most oilfields lie in the south. At present, the revenues are being shared equally.

Khartoum has some leverage, as most of the oil pipelines flow north to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

Citizenship is also a key issue which has not yet been decided.

A new law passed by the National Assembly in Khartoum has withdrawn Sudanese citizenship from all southerners.

The UN refugee agency (UNCHR), has urged both governments to prevent statelessness.

BBC News

January 12, 2011January 14, 2011

South Sudan food Security Improves

Prospects for future food security in southern Sudan depend highly on how the post-referendum period evolves.

12 January 2011, Rome/Juba – The number of people in need of food assistance in southern Sudan has decreased markedly – though prospects for food security largely depend on the post-referendum period and the number of people returning to the South, a United Nations report said today.

An assessment by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) warned that recent gains in food security, especially in states bordering on northern Sudan, such as Upper Nile and Unity, could be reversed by increasing food prices and any escalation of localized conflict.

“The overall food security situation improved markedly in 2010 compared to the previous year largely because of the favourable rains,” said WFP Regional Director for Sudan Amer Daoudi. “That is absolutely no reason for complacency now. More than a million people will still need food assistance and the situation could swiftly deteriorate at this critical time.”

Crop growing conditions were generally good in 2010, the report said. Rainfall started on time in most locations and rainfall levels were normal to above normal and generally well distributed. Despite some localised dry spells and floods, 2010 cereal crop production is estimated at 695 000 tons, nearly 30 percent higher than 2009. This estimate leaves an overall cereal deficit in 2011 of about 291 000 tonnes to be covered by commercial imports and food assistance.

“However, with a forecast of about 400 000 people returning to vote the estimated deficit may increase up to 340 000 tonnes, said FAO economist Mario Zappacosta. “Returnees are expected to further increase the pressure on local food market supplies.”

The report said that in the best-case scenario of a peaceful referendum process in the South, the number of people receiving emergency food assistance would rise gradually this year and was expected to peak at 1.4 million during the start of the lean season from March until August.

Prospects for future food security depended highly on how the referendum that started from 9 January and the post-referendum periods evolve, according to the report.

“Recent gains could easily be reversed due to the following risk factors: increasing food prices due to reduced trade flows and increased demand from returnees, a potential escalation of localized conflicts in the border areas, and potential increases of ethnic and inter-tribal tensions,” FAO/WFP said.

In the event of reduced trade, increased demand, high food prices and increased insecurity in the post-referendum period, the number of people receiving emergency food assistance out of the 2011 projected total population of 9.16 million in southern Sudan could reach 2.7 million at the start of the annual lean or hunger season when the previous harvest runs out.

The FAO/WFP mission estimated that 890 000 people were currently severely food insecure in the South and 2.4 million were moderately food insecure.

It said with uncertainties over the referendum the supply of grains from northern Sudan and to a lesser extent from Uganda and Kenya was expected to decline substantially. Grain stocks were declining in some border areas, leading to increased prices, which would also come under pressure from large numbers of returnees. So far, more than 120,000 people have returned since October and up to 250,000 are expected to have arrived by early February.

(FAO)