Publications

Before independence, northern Sudanese, Chinese, Malaysians, Indians, and their firms dominated the South Sudanese petroleum industry. After South Sudan declared independence, many South Sudanese had hoped to realize so many dreams through the petroleum sector, including benefiting directly from the petroleum industry through a local content (South Sudanization) policy.

South Sudan’s President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, on October 2nd, 2015, issued an executive order that increased the country’s current 10 states to 28 decentralized states. The new arrangement, to a certain degree, follows ethnic boundaries[1], methodically isolating those communities mainly in the Upper Nile region[2].

State effectiveness in meeting its public demands is measured using governance impact indicators, sometimes with emphasis on anti-corruption, accountability, and transparency measures (McFerson 2009). Thus, institutional instruments (laws and regulations) are normally deployed to guide against corruption and promote accountability and transparency.

After months of fighting and on and off negotiations, the IGAD Plus finally set a deadline of August 17th, 2015 to end a conflict that has displaced over a million people and killed tens of thousands. The effort resulted in a partially signed deal.

It is now 20 months since the present civil war started in South Sudan. In search of appropriate interventions, several strides, concerted locally, regionally, and internationally, have thus far been undertaken. Unfortunately, not a single strategy has been able to produce convincing results for the warring parties to end the...

South Sudan currently experiences existential health threats as the war devastates a third of its territory, the Greater Upper Nile region. Morbidity and mortality related to both direct and indirect consequences of war have become increasingly commonplace, especially in the displaced encampments.

Since the recent war struck in South Sudan, there has been an increasing tendency by the South Sudanese ethnic communities to sever relations among themselves. In particular, members of the Dinka and Nuer ethnicities in the Diaspora quickly retreated back to their localities and started to avoid interacting with each...

The recent announcement of the reinstatement of former senior leaders of the ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), who were dismissed by its chairman in 2013 from the party ranks, came as yet another unsurprising and yet questionable action by a party that has been plagued for years...

Recently, a new bout of large-scale armed confrontations hit the states of Upper Nile and Unity, with new allies of the SPLA-In Opposition taking control of Malakal and its surrounding vicinities, equally threatening the nation’s only oil producing facilities in Paloch.