Economy

Availability of accurate and up to date data and information on land and different land uses, such as agriculture, forestry, mining, wildlife, water, housing and infrastructure, is critical to effective land governance and crucial for planning and managing the use of land and land-based resources. Public institutions and the government need land data and information for appropriate and timely decision-making; while land users, the general public and other stakeholders need it to effectively monitor and influence those decisions. Land data and information is also critical for effective tracking of land policy implementation processes to inform lesson learning and generate good practices, as well as to ensure sustainable and equitable land investments.
It is an often-repeated rhetoric that there is a lack of land data; either there is no data or the data that exists is unreliable or out of date. Collecting new data is a time-consuming and costly process. Data is collected and captured on a massive scale already, but research shows that of all existing data worldwide, less than 1% is actually analyzed and digested. With increasing digitization of information, increased use of internet in all parts of the world, and continuously growing demand for more data, the risk is that existing data is either purposely cast aside (as the source may be from outside our trusted networks) or simply overlooked. The current reality of land data is that in many par ts of the world, data remains inaccessible, fragmented, poorly managed or simply unusable.

With this State of Land Information Report, the authors seek to provide an overview of publicly available data and information on key land issues, from not only government, but also other sources. The aim of the research is to uncover the many different sources of land data and information at the country-level and help to identify actual data and information gaps, with a view to establishing a baseline for targeted ‘information-based’ interventions to improve the information ecosystem. What sets this research apart from other monitoring initiatives, is that the focus is on the database or dataset and its sources; the value or content of the information is not our main focus. The authors’ belief is that data quality, accuracy and reliability lies in the judgement of the user. For the very first time, the authors look at the entire landscape of a country to see trends and gaps when it comes to land data collection, as well as how accessible it is on the world wide web. The State of Land Information report concludes with -where necessary- concrete recommendations to data and information providers to improve their data sharing practices, to help establish a functioning, inclusive and democratized ecosystem of data.

When considering South Sudan’s prospects for 2050, perhaps the largest unknown is the potential impact of technology on the country’s economy, social relations and politics. Technology provides ever-evolving possibilities to transform the economy and the aid sector and to mitigate challenges related to climate change and demographic growth. There is little accurate data on use of technology in South Sudan. As such, this note relies on estimates of technology use and emerging regional and global technological developments, more often posing questions rather than providing specific predictions about the implications of future technology use.

This Better Aid Forum briefing paper on technology and innovation is the first publication of the BAF briefing paper series.

The Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility’s (CSRF) Better Aid Forum (BAF) is a series of events and discussions with different stakeholders to consider the long-term objectives and ambitions of the aid sector in South Sudan. It focuses beyond the timeframes of ongoing political and security dynamics in order to drive collective analysis about the approaches and principles that should underpin international engagement in South Sudan over the longer term.

In June 2019, a two-day event, the Better Aid Forum Experts Meeting, was held in Nairobi to reflect on findings from the Better Aid Forum process thus far, and debate how long-term trends may shape South Sudan’s context over the coming decades – and what this means for aid. The CSRF commissioned a number of input briefing papers that consider long-term trends underway in South Sudan, regionally, and globally that are likely to play a role in shaping South Sudan’s future.

This report that discusses opportunities provided by livestock in South Sudan referring to famine, access and conflict sensitivity is based on research conducted by Naomi Pendle and the Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility (CSRF) in 2017. The research was funded by the UK, Swiss, and Canadian Donor Missions in South Sudan.

Displaced Tastes is a research project run by the Rift Valley Institute in partnership with the Catholic University of South Sudan under the X-Border Local Research Network. The project examines the changing tastes for food in South Sudan in the context of the country’s economic transition and place in the regional, cross-border economy of grain.

In the urban centres of South Sudan, people increasingly depend on markets to buy grains imported from South Sudan’s neighbours—particularly Sudan and Uganda—for their daily food. While this growing reliance on a cash-based regional economy of food is becoming more evident, much less is known about the lives of the people involved in the grain trade—the traders, transporters and millers—who provide South Sudan’s urban areas with staple foods like maize, sorghum and cassava.

To understand how grain is traded in South Sudan, and who by, Jovensia Uchalla examines the life stories of South Sudanese and foreign grain traders, transporters and millers in Juba. These stories talk of opportunities, shocks and changing tastes. Over the past half-decade, risks have risen and smaller traders have taken over from bigger ones. Most of the people discussed in this article moved into the grain trade after they suffered a shock in their previous jobs or shifted positions within the grain trade from drivers and loaders to millers and wholesalers.

This guide is a compilation of some of the forms of descriptive analysis that WFP and partners have undertaken since 1994.

This economy profile presents the World Bank Doing Business indicators for South Sudan. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. Doing Business 2017 is the 14th in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business; for 2016 South Sudan ranks 187. Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2017 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2016 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2015).

Despite moderate levels of external debt, the combined impact of a civil conflict, a large fall in oil prices, and high levels of fiscal spending has left South Sudan in debt distress. This crisis has caused payment delays on international obligations, on civil servant salaries, and other government obligations. Moreover, international lines of credit have been restructured on longer maturities, international reserves have declined to near exhaustion, and the country is currently constrained from accessing long term external financing. However, assuming implementation of the recently adopted economic adjustment policies and a successful peace process, the debt outlook would improve considerably which could allow for a gradual resumption of external financing. However, vulnerabilities remain high and a
prolonged period of lower oil prices or failure to address the country’s economic and security problems could cause continued debt sustainability problem.

This weekly review contributes to the debate on how the COVID-19 induced hysteresis effects could affect growth in South Sudan. It addresses two related questions: What channels would transmit the COVID-19 scarring effects to the output? What can public policy do to support recovery?

South Sudan, along with many of its neighbouring countries in north-east Africa, faces a seemingly intractable economic crisis. Cycles of civil war and brokered elite peace deals since 2013 have entrenched widespread economic breakdown with locally specific dynamics. This has resulted in increased security surveillance, repression and control. It has also encouraged sustained armed recruitment and out-migration across national borders for survival.

This research project aims to understand the dynamics of this protracted economic and political crisis from the perspective of poor residents in the conflict-affected borderland of South Sudan and southern Darfur in Sudan. The study asks two core questions: First, how do residents in the borderlands of South Sudan seek survival, welfare and better lives in the economies and cross-border migrant pathways available to them? Second, how do young men and women navigate the risks of migrant and military work across South Sudan, Sudan and further afield?
The pathways of young people into migrant and military work in South Sudan, across the border with Sudan and towards Egypt, Libya and onwards are catalyzed and connected by the repressive structures of the economic system in the South Sudan borderlands. This report begins with a description of the exploitative economy that traps and impoverishes residents on this borderland. It is this economy that frames the decisions and pathways of the young men and women who seek work and lives elsewhere.

The report then follows these young people to militarized livelihoods in Juba, across the border to Darfur and Khartoum, through the peri-urban settlements and gold mining fields in Sudan, and onwards to Egypt, Libya, Chad and beyond. The report concludes with an exploration of the borderland migrant networks that keep people alive and connected through these pathways and choices.

This study assesses the macro-fiscal framework for jobs in South Sudan, working with the limited macro-fiscal data available on the fiscal years 2019 and 2020. The macroeconomic environment can hardly be more difficult for South Sudanese looking to make a living. For workers, the dramatic contraction of non-oil output since the beginning of the conflict reflected a loss of job activities and a breakdown in market demand. A 60-fold increase in prices since before the conflict poses a serious obstacle to job activities, while an overvalued exchange rate weakens incentives. The oil sector is a big part of the economy, and the budget is dependent on oil revenue – but with weak governance, too little spending goes toward investment in development. The public sector in employment is large and a source of patronage, but it has an important function as a source of demand for goods and services. The study is one of a set of four reports assessing different aspects of jobs in urban South Sudan in order to formulate policy for recovery.