 Thanks for sticking around for the afternoon session. You've probably noticed that throughout the day we're going back and forth between sort of big level issues and cases of specific places that we can dive a little bit deeper into some of the issues. This afternoon's panel, we're kind of trying to bring it all together here. We're talking a little bit about donor coordination, a little bit about what is donors do well, what is donors do poorly, specifically in the context of a place that is, I believe, the newest country in the world, and a place where there is a lot of donor attention, not clearly to the degree of Afghanistan or Haiti, but there's a lot of attention and it would be useful for us to take a look at this particular case to see how donors are doing so far. I can think of no better person to lead and moderate this panel than Andrew Natias, who barely needs an introduction. As you know, he was a former aid administrator for USAID and I will leave the remainder of the panel in his capable hands. Thanks Andrew. Thank you very much. I am not going to make my remarks until the end, believe it or not, because I know I may throw a couple of hand grenades and I want to do that a little bit separated from lunch. I don't want to make anyone ill after lunch. So what we're going to do is have Francois give an overview on the broader issues, the context, the scene setter, and then Jason is going to speak about coordination in terms of Abiyay and Jason has been in Sudan, South Sudan, in the border for like 18 years. I have to just tell you a quick story. I went to my, when I became aid, my first trip was to Sudan and I went up to the border and Brian De Silva, our old friend, who I worked with for 24 years, had me interviewed by Jason and Jason had gone into the Nuba mountains for six months alone, alone. And he gave me a report and this is the, combat is going on now, the civil war is going on and he's being shelled and everything else, very brave man and I said, do you work for me? He said, well, I work for you. I said, are you Foreign Service Officer? He said, no, are you a PSC? No. Are you, who are you? He said, well, I work for you. I said, how do you work for me? It turns out, I shouldn't say this actually, but he was on a contract that Brian had through the Department of Agriculture that the embassy was not quite aware of or he wouldn't have been allowed in the Nuba mountains. In the middle of combat, he said, we knew we had to get around all the security restrictions, so we sent Jason in through another means because you wouldn't want a firsthand report on what was going on. He was in there for three or four months. He was a very brave man, but he knows the context. John Timmon is going to talk about the politics in Nuba within the ruling party, which is profoundly affecting the, in fact, browning, affecting everything. And John is the head of the Horn of Africa effort, particularly in Sudan at the USIP, Francoise, of course, from the United Nations. So let's have Francoise, if you could speak first. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me here, and indeed, I think what I would like to try and do is provide a scene setter for the current situation in South Sudan, and the challenge is that all international partners are facing to try and help the newest world nation, you know, make progress towards its own, I would say, stabilisation and peace consolidation agenda. We have a very, very particular, very peculiar situation in South Sudan, which I think it's important to grasp. First of all, I want to try and suggest that we have, you know, of course, today and in the past few days, and there is a crisis. There is an emergency situation in one area of the country. It's within a state at the eastern periphery of the country, Zhongli State, where you have had a conflict which has been escalating based on inter-communal violence, the legacy of the war, new rebel groups, quite an explosive mix, and it has had a very destabilising effect and a dramatic humanitarian effect on the civilian populations. But the point I would like to make is, and this is important when you try and think and consider, you know, South Sudan as a whole, is that the country itself, despite all its challenges, is not as a whole necessarily in crisis and the situation in Zhongli that you may, you know, hear about and we'll probably discuss a bit further, is not necessarily representative of the overall picture in the country. In fact, a couple of months ago I led an exercise before the mandate renewal of the mission in South Sudan that you have a review of the mandate to try and see whether this mandate was adapted to the current situation. And in reviewing this as a normal planning process, we look at the threat assessment. We look at, you know, the issues that needs to be addressed in terms of, because to try to realign and adjust our priorities and in particular refocus and align the resources which is at our disposal in the mission to address, you know, these priorities. And if you look at the overall picture of South Sudan, which, you know, we did, we found out that we could look at each of the 10 states of the country and categorize them, you know, very in a very simple fashion into those green, you know, green states, orange states and red states. And the red states would be the state which is currently destabilized. That's a state of Zhongli. Then orange state is states which would be at risk of destabilization. And yes, you still have states in South Sudan which are at risk of destabilization because of the legacy of the war, the fact that so many ex-combatants, South Sudanese combatants have come back to the country. And the border states of unity, of up and aisle, also those affected by fairly intense cattle wrestling in a tri-state area of war-up, unity, and, you know, at risk of destabilization. But the government is taking care of the situation, supported by the mission. And then you have five orders which we thought were in a situation, you know, we categorized as green, meaning that you may have local tensions, you may have local conflicts, but they are being managed. Sometimes they are being managed with an excessive use of force and that's what we had earlier this year in the town of Waoh in western Bari Ghazal. And this led to a temporary, you know, to a limited escalation. But overall, the country is not doing, I would like to say, as badly as sometimes it is perceived. And I know that, you know, in the past week, there has been many, you know, public statements make, highlighting the need for the country to make more progress, to address corruption, to address governance issues, and all this is true. The situation also in Zhongli State is true. But the overall picture is also a picture of progress. It's also a picture of, I would say, tremendous effort in view of tremendous hardships. And it is a picture which in terms of, therefore, you know, of coordination, of international action is difficult to address because in order to be able to make a difference and to move the country and the states of the country which are, for instance, in a red or orange situation towards a green situation, you need not only to invest into crisis management, but you also need to invest in the building of the capacities in the building of the, you know, state ability to address its own situation, which is the mandate of the mission, of the UN mission. And these two competing priorities represent a challenge in view of the limited resources which exist. But unless you address consistently, effectively, and I would say at the same level, these two competing priorities, you are going to lose, you may win a few battles, but you are going to lose the war. You may actually succeed into improving the short-term situation of people affected by conflict, but you are not investing into resolving the issues that led to this crisis and to this conflict. And that's what we need in South Sudan right now. These double investments, not just into crisis management and relieving the suffering of people affected by conflict, but also building the capacities of the state to address by itself the root causes of this conflict at national and local level. And I'll go down into the details quickly of this issue on how we can do that. So that's the first paradox or the first challenge which I would say to mention. Another one now which is more globally political is, as you know, South Sudan, until very recently, relied on oil resources. The oil revenues for 98% of its budget and decided to shut down oil production, leading into a very harsh period of austerity. This was related to the deterioration of this relation with its northern neighbor, from which it gained independence, Sudan. And to the fact that it felt, South Sudan felt that their oil revenue was stolen from them. And to stop this theft of oil revenue, they had to stop the oil production. Now, the consequences, of course, for the new state to be able to deliver on its peace-building priorities, on its beginning of service delivery and developing of its capacities were dramatic. I mean, you can imagine 98% of the revenue of the state gone. So, we have this particular political environment where international partners are dealing with the government which is still, I would say, inspired by the need to protect itself and to face and to stand up to threats from its neighboring Sudan. And that informs its decision-making. That also informs its internal politics. And sometimes it is used to put its internal politics and to close the internal dynamics. But it is a parameter which makes it even more difficult, I would say, which represents another big challenge, is that to a certain extent, and we can, you know, we will be able to discuss that hopefully later on. The challenge, one of the challenges of donor engagement and coordination and working together with South Sudan is that you have to consider the bilateral relations with Sudan also. You have to consider action, political action and consistency in the engagement which addresses not just the internal situation of South Sudan, but addresses also the relation with Sudan and to a certain extent what also the internal dynamics within Sudan. So, the donor policy and the diplomatic, you know, policy needs to be articulated around, you know, this specificity of a country which has still very much its energy, you know, geared towards not just its internal development, peace control, the issues, but its external, the external threats that it feels it is still, you know, facing from the North. And the last point I would like to make, to introduce this, is that in view of these two particular challenges, the United Nations just wanted to specify a couple of, I would say, interventions that the United Nations is trying to coordinate. First of all, at national level, so we have, you know, engaging with the government of South Sudan, we have two missions. We have the main mission, the mission for South Sudan and we have a mission which deals with the territory of Abye, which future was not determined during the CPA and which is now also mandated to support, I would say, the tensions at the border, within a zone which is at the border which is supposed to be demilitarized, and then we have the mission in South Sudan. The mission in South Sudan in particular has the mandate to facilitate and coordinate the implementation of, or they say, the support to the management or the implementation of key benchmarks from the country. Among them, you have, you know, such critical processes such as the constitutional review process, the organization of the next elections, but also the absolutely fundamental issues of the demobilization and disarmament of combatants and the secret sector reform. So the United Nations has been mandated to really be the overall, you know, facilitator and coordinator and supporter of such, of these huge processes. We'll, let's be realistic, we'll, you know, be faced with enormous operational challenges and I can get into that later on. And also we'll need some time, particularly for DDR and SSR. And in addition to that, I would say, or let's say to support that operationally, the mission has organized itself to be able to implement its mandates in a decentralized fashion. So it is in the process of building in over 20 counties of the country, what we call county support basis. And at the level of county support basis, we bring the different partners, particularly from the mission and from the UN agencies together to work into the implementation both of, I would say, a conflict prevention strategy and mitigation when necessary, but also development initiatives which are coordinated into what at the same level is called a development portal. So you have both functions of trying to address the political issues and also the immediate needs and requirements of the population in those counties and the neighboring counties. Those counties support basis are small hubs in each state out of which the United Nations and some of its partners try to project themselves to coordinate their actions in a decentralized fashion. So these are two of the modalities which articulate the UN position. I leave it there and hand over to Jason. Thank you for the invitation, and Andrew, thank you for the introduction. I'm sure my visa to Sudan is being reviewed at this point. Hold on. This is a water yard. It provides enough water for 5,000 people. If you put this water yard in the politically contested and extremely volatile area of Abye straddling the border between Sudan and South Sudan, is it a humanitarian response for the 100,000 people that have been displaced from the violence trying to return? Or is it a development response? Is it an economic growth response helping the Missouri who move seasonally through the area promote healthy herds? Or is it a democracy and governance response supporting building confidence in the local government to provide services? Is it the outcome of a local reconciliation conference between the Missouri and the Dinka over natural resources? Or is it the result of over 12 years of sustained negotiations for political solution, 12 years and counting, I should say, for sustained political solution for Abye? Clearly, it's all of these, and I would argue all of these are stabilization responses. This presentation is gonna use Abye as a bit of a focal point, a point of reference, sorry, for a conversation on coordinating local stabilization efforts in Abye. The two seconds on Abye is that it was received a protocol. It has a specific protocol within the comprehensive agreement signed in 2005. That protocol has three broad aims. The first aim is to provide a homeland to secure a homeland for the Dinka knock. That includes their return to the area and their participation and a referendum on their political status as part of Sudan or part of South Sudan. The second aim is to protect the livelihoods of the Missaria who move through the area, specifically their right to graze. And the third main aim of the agreement is to provide significant development dividends to both communities, given the complexity of this agreement. This presentation will really focus on one key challenge to donor coordination at the local level, and I think we heard a lot about it over the lunch, the issue of perspectives, perspectives of time on the narratives, space, the geography in which we see, the map we use, who, who we work with, who we serve, and lastly why, why is this assistance being provided? The annual cycles used by the humanitarian assistance have to address the kind of the peaks and lulls, but the peaks of thirst, hunger, disease that come season by season through quite extreme variations within Sudan. For those who look at conflict, there's also a seasonality in our annual timeline that helps direct how we respond. That conflict is generally associated with migration of Missaria livestock through the area and then tensions. And the time of period where that most likely escalates is pretty typically after the cows move north. When they're out of harm's way, these violent incidents have the potential to escalate and they did twice during the interim period of the CPA displacing around 100,000 people. If you ask the peace builders, you ask the mission and the others, they'll use a timeline torn out of the back of the agreement, essentially the implementation modalities. And if you talk to the two parties, to the local, to the local parties to the conflict, the Missaria and the Dinka, their timeline is different. It goes back to 1964 and tracks a series of violence and reconciliation, back and forth violence over a longer period of time. And if you talk to the Dinka knock, they're talking about 1905, when the British transferred Abye's administration from Southern Sudan into Northern Sudan, we have a different perspective over time that we need to get our heads around. The map, if we're able to elevate Abye out of its special status, we see that it's entangled within the larger borderland communities, cut mixed with migration routes and trade routes and natural resources of national relevance and local importance. And it's very hard to separate out Abye from the wider issues that are also between Sudan and South Sudan. And for us, for those eight actors, when we look at the same map, we don't see the same thing. If you're a development actor who's looking for sufficient capacity and sufficient stability in order to provide that development assistance, you would prioritize the more stable area to the north of Abye, where the mysterious start their migration, where they have their residents. Second, you'd go below Abye to Audubstate, where they have more stability in Abye would be third. But if you're a humanitarian, the greatest needs would be to the far south of Abye where not only is the host community poor, but is the community that they're receiving the displaced people. But if you're a conflict person, this is the priorities you would set. You would try to look at creating parity between Muglad and Abye. And you would look for positive examples to the east and the west. So as actors, we have a different map when we look in different priorities amongst us. But for the Sudanese, if you're Dinka Nock, the SPLM presented your border to the Abye Boundaries Commission, the Abye Boundaries Commission, which ruled on what was the boundaries of Abye placed it here. That was contested by the government of Sudan. It was later deferred to the permanent court of arbitration, who made the boundaries here. That still did not move anywhere, continued to be rejected by the government of Sudan to a point where there was ideas being floated of a nominal boundary, somewhere even smaller shrinking Abye. That nominal boundary is also somehow lined up to the buffer zone created by Unisfa to separate the Missaria and the Dinka Nock during this grazing period. And again, if you're Dinka Nock seeing your area shrinking, you also remember the government of Sudan made a position for your exclusive territory not going above the river here. And if you're Missaria, this is probably the map you're looking at with a desert behind you in the green grass on the other side of a very thick and scary line. And if you're Sudanese, this is almost unrecognizable. You're looking at a border that looks like it's been shredded. This is not a country that Sudanese would recognize naturally when looking at what was Sudan. And if you look at the fact, if you recognize the fact that Southern Cortifan, Blue Nile and Darfur, that whole Southern border is in conflict right now. Most of that Southern border's in conflict right now. You'd be worried that this is, Abye is part of a slippery slope for the further disintegration of their territory. Who? Who are we serving? Who are we protecting? The weak, are we protecting a lifelong struggle? Are we protecting her interests? Or are we protecting his interests if they come in conflict with each other? But here's probably where we have the biggest challenge that divides the aid community. This local official, is he our counterpart or is he someone we work around? These young men, are they militia? Are they just armed young men? Are they a source of conflict, angry at the lack of opportunities? Or are they a conflict resource for those with private or political agendas to mobilize? And what's their motivation? Are they there for the money or are they there for ideology? And this group, they seem to be both sides of the formula, the armed group, SAF and SPLA, they're both a source of stability in some communities and also a source of conflict. We don't want to talk to them in the aid world. We're nervous about talking to them. We'd rather talk to them when they come to us like this. This is what we're ready to engage. And how do they see us? Do they see us as part of the community? Do they see us as outside to the community? Do they see us as coming for our own interests or for theirs? Are they with us? Do they see us protecting their security? And importantly, do they see power? Do they see projected power? Do they see a false promise of security if they run to the compound that they will be let in? Sorry, can I back up? But also within us, within our aid community, as a coordinator, thank you. Thanks, Andrew. We could barely get the UN agencies to meet in the compound of the peacekeeping mission for what it looked like, much less the NGOs. It required UNMISS to build a bar, and then everybody came to meet that side point. But essentially, to get everybody to sit together, even be seen as being and working together was a huge challenge. And why? Just to conclude, what do people associate the thing we give with the reason why it's given? This water yard coming back to the beginning, is it seen as promoting the return of Dinkinok to their homeland, or providing an opportunity to resettle Missaria into the area so that they could also participate, claim residency, and participate? And when we put our sign up, does it show that we are a counterpart to the government, that we are a partner? Does it show that we are clearly in South Sudan, when you put this sign up, it's very clearly they see it as a responsibility of the government to bring aid. So it's a confidence builder. In some places in Sudan, this sign reinforces the message that the government is not taking care of us, it's the international community that is our friend. So we have to understand not just what we do, but what they see us as doing. Are we there for their interests? Have we chosen a side? Do we have a foreign agenda? And just to conclude, humanitarian assistance alone does not address the need for humanitarian assistance. The causes are conflict, they're structural, they're political. Development assistance, if it's scared to come in, or cautious to come in until there's sufficient capacity or stability, will only further enforce disparities between communities. Development, conflict mitigation assistance that's short-sighted, I was pointed out, like creating a buffer zone to separate the two parties in Abye, or preventing election violence at the time of the elections, does it necessarily, and in fact, can contribute to violence later, the killing of the paramount chief of the Dinka knock when he crossed that buffer zone. The rebel movements that are now in Sudan and South Sudan who don't believe there's political space because the elections were not violent, but not sufficient to address their concerns. So in conclusion, we need to think of stability, not as the way of shepherding these multiple interventions, but as codependent between those objectives of development, humanitarian assistance, requires stability as stability requires those interventions. And one of the biggest barriers we find is just simply our perspectives into what we're seeing, and our perspectives into time, our perspectives into geography, the maps we use, our perspectives into who we work with and don't work with, and obviously why this assistance is being provided. And again, the photos I wanna just thank, obviously Tim McCullough who worked for UNMISS and took a lot of photos, and USAID Sudan and South Sudan mission for allowing me to use these. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Jason raises a lot of really good questions that I hope we can grapple with as does Francois. I'd like to make the point that a lot of what the two of them have just spoken about concerning some of these very important issues in South Sudan and Zhonglei and Abye and elsewhere is right now secondary politically in terms of what's happening in South Sudan. And what is dominating the political stage in South Sudan is a brewing conflict at the very top of the government, which is between the President Salvekir and the Vice President Riyak Mishar. And for those of you who have followed these issues, you know this is nothing new, but I think it is intensified recently. And certainly in the time that I've been following South Sudan for five years or so, it's as bad now as I've seen it. And so I wanna talk just a bit about this and to talk about the implications for donors. This conflict right now, it's coloring everything. And I think a lot of different issues are being seen through the lens of this conflict, including some of the more recent political developments. There were two prominent ministers who were suspended on charges of corruption and recently two state governors have been removed by the President, which he is allowed to do in the Constitution, but then elections are supposed to happen within 60 days. And all those things are being seen as sort of this person is in this camp, that person is in that camp. There are more than two camps. I'm oversimplifying a little bit, but at the end of the day, it does come down to a really what I see as a zero sum struggle at the top of the party. And part of the problem is that the party, the SPLM is not particularly well equipped to deal with this struggle and is the development within the party has not progressed a lot over the past few years. There have been other priorities, which is understandable given the referendum and independence and all the state building challenges that come with it. But I don't see a lot of things moving in South Sudan in a positive direction until this is resolved in some way. That said, I don't see how it's gonna be resolved in a particularly positive fashion because I think it is zero sum and I think a lot of groups and particularly ethnic groups are going to look at this as a win-lose equation. This is going to make things difficult for donors, I think, for the foreseeable future because it's gonna make it hard to talk to the government and to understand whether it's the full government that is speaking and it's gonna be hard for the government to formulate and to implement policy because of some of these internal divisions that are holding things up. I think what we're seeing in South Sudan is some of the unity that was brought about by the referendum and by independence is starting to fall apart. There was really impressive unity in the run-up to the referendum, in the run-up to independence because of that goal that so many people in South Sudan shared and clearly articulated in January a couple years ago of becoming independent. But that also had this temporary effect of holding things together and I think that's wearing off right now. There's also this dynamic of the common enemy that is often seen in the North and that still happens but that's not as persuasive an argument for holding people together as it used to be. And so the honeymoon period that we did see after the referendum is starting to wear away and so the question which has been there for some time but I think is more front and center now is what unifies South Sudan and that gets into all sorts of questions about what it means to be South Sudanese and various identity issues that are very important and that a lot of South Sudanese are struggling with right now. I think the bad news from the donor perspective is that I'm skeptical that the international community and donors and diplomats are able to have much impact on these internal struggles that are happening within the party right now. I think these are inside the family things, inside the party things that we have a limited understanding of and that we have a limited ability to affect and so in some ways it's a waiting game to see how that plays out. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, I think there is good deal of evidence that donors have been able to influence outcomes in Sudan and South Sudan, especially recently and I refer in particular to the referendum in 2011 and what I think was the very positive donor and diplomat role in making that process a real success and we have to remember that there were all sorts of predictions that the referendum was never gonna happen, that the North was never gonna let the South secede, that it was going to lead to renewed civil war and so forth and that didn't happen and that's a real positive conflict prevention story perhaps and we don't have a whole lot of those. The donor community and the diplomatic community had a lot to do with that positive outcome, I think there was definitely a very domestic explanation too but I think donors played a good role in keeping both parties in bounds and telling the North that they had to accept the referendum, that it was inevitable in keeping the South focused on the referendum and not considering things like a more unilateral declaration of independence and the donors also did a very good job in terms of the technical preparations for the referendum which really had to be squeaky clean and it was and the technical preparations supported by donors had a lot to do with that but then on the flip side of that positive story about the referendum and what was really a sole focus on the referendum is the opportunity that I think was missed by some of the donor and diplomatic community during the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement which was for the greater democratic transformation of Sudan and South Sudan. If you look back at the CPA it's a very long document that I know some of our panelists were very much involved in developing which has a lot to do with transforming whether it's one or two countries into a more democratic place and that really didn't happen during that CPA period. The CPA got boiled down to doing a few things to establishing Southern Sudan, to separating the armies, to having an election, to having a referendum, all of these vital things no doubt but I think a lot of people, Sudanese, South Sudanese and internationals were complicit in removing the focus from the democratic transformation agenda and so that's why we have a situation right now where certainly in the north in Sudan you have a less than democratic country and we're seeing some very concerning signs that South Sudan is not developing in terms of the democratic governance structures that we'd like to see and so part of the lesson there I think was that there was an emphasis on stability and doing these key things and less of an emphasis on the governance change and full recognition, this is a very easy critique for me to make in hindsight and maybe things really did need to be focused on those key events or it was going to explode and return to a war that was obviously brutally destructive for millions of people. Just to start to wrap up, I think part of the message with South Sudan now is that it is time for donors to change some of their perceptions of the country and for diplomats too and I think this is happening but it's probably happening a little bit too slowly and for quite some time the sort of common narrative was generally friends with the north and enemies, sorry, friends with the south and enemies with the north and that's over now now that the south really is an independent country and I think the south needs to be held more to the ideals that they have set out in terms of democratic governance, what they have articulated that they wanted to be during their struggle for independence and that we're starting to see them not to live up to and along the same lines I think it's time to stop comparing South Sudan to Sudan, that's an awfully low bar to set. I think we need to be looking at a whole lot of other countries if we're looking for comparisons for South Sudan, you sort of often get this narrative about how South Sudan arrested a journalist and well Sudan arrested 10 and they might have but I don't see how that's particularly relevant. It's time to hold them to their own standards I think. Let me just highlight two other things that I think donors are also grappling with. One is just the relief to development transition that we talk about in South Sudan and this has been an ongoing dialogue for some time and there's no right answers in this but it's really hard to figure out the balance between some of the more relief oriented humanitarian activities that save lives and the needs remain massive versus some of the longer term development activities and I think this is part of what Jason highlighted so well. The other concern that I hear from some donors and diplomats in South Sudan is that there is some complacency I think going on within the government about fighting for themselves internationally. For some time the international community and particularly the West has fought a lot diplomatically for South Sudan but now that they are independent and they have of their own ministry of foreign affairs and those sorts of things it's time for them to be in the lead on that and that sometimes happens but it sometimes doesn't and there's still an expectation of the West doing a lot of the heavy lifting on that and I think the appetite is not there the way it used to be. Just to conclude I don't think it's fair to call South Sudan a failed state and I think it's probably a little bit premature after two years of existence to say they're the fourth most failed state in the world or something like that because this is someone sent around an article this morning about this being a marathon not a sprint I think that was one of you UN colleagues who wrote that and I think that's absolutely true but at the same time I think South Sudan is also approaching a pretty dangerous precipice here and it is time to be candid with some of the very concerning things that they are facing right now and to be very concerned about some of the political struggles that are happening at the very top of the government in Juba right now. Thanks very much. Let me make a few provocative statements here at the end. Let me just observe from a donor perspective some of the issues and some of the limitations I've heard some earlier panels which I found entertaining and musing but a little bit misleading frankly and what the realities are. First what is AID's challenge? Who do they report to? We asked the career staff in the 90s before I was administrator who is your customer? Who do you report to? We would thought you would think an agency would say the people in the field, the groups we did you know what they answered the career staff the US Congressional Oversight Committees that's who we report and they do there are 12 Congressional Oversight Committees they often tell you to do opposite things from each other they control your appropriation they control the laws and the implementation of the laws under which you do your work. Every single program I don't mean just the general appropriation every single individual program has to be approved by the Congressional Oversight Committee they get the documents they in batches and they can say I don't like this so we're not doing this. One committee and this is the 12 committees over CAID in Congress. Then there is the Inspector General's office if they crap you up with a terrible audit you're gonzo. Your career is over as a career person if you're a political pointy you're over if you have a really bad IG audit and then you have the General Accounting Office and Armored the Congress they also oversee and they fight with the IG to see whether they can trash you worse than the IG does and then in Iraq and Afghanistan there's this special IG who competes with a regular IG to see who can criticize you more. They actually do compete with each other to make more extreme statements because that's how they get their money they actually say I saved the taxpayer all this money from these incompetence at AID or any federal agency this is not just AID by the way this goes on across the federal government and these agencies these oversight agencies run AID they run the State Department they run DOD they tell you what to do or else they issue press releases they can make your life miserable. Then you have the National Security Council the White House the President of the United States does have a small say in these matters since he was elected to be the head of the executive branch and he gives orders to AID or state to do certain things. Now state now controls every line item in AID budget is now controlled by the State Department under the reorganization that took place in the last few years. AID has no budget independence left anymore whatsoever. There were a decentralization orders signed by the administrator I think was in 1978 to decentralize to the lowest level AID was the most decentralized AID agency in the world by far. We actually did a study of this in AID and there were nine steps in the program development process and AID mission directors had control over seven of the nine in this study the only AID agency in the world bilateral multilateral that had that much decentralization those were all rescinded in the last few years. The AID administrator has no authority to spend any line item in his own budget or her own budget without the State Department approving every single line item. So there is no independent AID now at the table without specific approval. Then you have OMB. Now people wonder why there isn't more buy-off. I mean why isn't there more buy-in in the development why don't we ask people? Well you have 279 earmarks that make up the AID budget. You have to spend that money if you don't you're in violation of federal law in fact you can go to jail actually if you exceed some of these limits. It's a very serious matter to spend money you don't have under the federal statutes, federal law. The federal acquisition regulations 1,978 pages of those regulations tell AID officers how to spend money in fact they tell all federal agencies how to spend money. So this is also the case in Britain, in the EU and other donor governments. So if you have a choice as an officer to take orders from Washington from the State Department or NSC or if in the context of Southern Sudan the Congress or OMB or the inspect versus the Southern government who you can take orders from? It's pretty clear to me. I mean anybody here who's ever worked in AID or the Congress knows very well the realities are. So there is a problem in terms of who the reporting lines are. AID is not an independent agency. It used to be more independent than it is now but even then it had this oversight. This is new by the way. Congress before the 1960s did not get involved in the executive management of the executive branch. This is a relatively new phenomenon in federal government. This is not something that's existed for 200 years. It's new and I think it's screwed everything up massively in my view but that's my opinion. Now let me make some comments about the implications of this in the field, okay? What are the two most important, most powerful institutions that exist in Southern Sudan today? If you're a Southern Sudan expert, even if you're a highly secularized person, you would not disagree with what I'm saying. One is the church. The fastest conversion, mass conversion to Christianity in the 20th century took place in Sudan over the last 30 years and it was not done by missionaries. It was done by other Southern Sudanese. They mass converted. Only the Nuweir tribe even is at 50, 50% now. Most of the tribes are at 70, 80% are Christianized now and the church is spreading even more powerful. It is the Anglican church, the Roman Catholic church, the Presbyterian church, the Evangelical Chimp Pentecostal churches. They are, virtually the entire cabinet are practicing Christians. They're a church for three hours every Sunday morning, Selvic here. If you wanna hear what he thinks, you go to the Catholic church he goes to because he preaches often in his own church as a layman. Okay, now, how often do development agencies deal with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church, the Anglican church, the Presbyterian? They don't. They may talk to them at the local level. You think that's in the design of AID or World Bank or UN programs? Absolutely not. Why? In the West we have a separation of church and state. We can't spend money developing the hierarchies of these churches. Yet, they are the genuine civil society of Southern Sudan. And I might add, this is the same problem in Muslim countries or Buddhist countries. They are the most influential civil society that are genuine with roots in the local community. And yet, we cannot deal with them on a systematic, programmatic basis, even though we may talk to them occasionally, because of the secular culture of the international and bilateral aid institutions. The second most powerful institution is the military, the SPLA. It's been around since John Grang started the Second Revolt with other leaders in the South. Some people would argue it actually dates back to the First Revolt, which started even before independence in 1956, although it's debatable when the Second War started. I'm sorry, the First War started. The SPLA, who in the international system is designing a large-scale capacity building program? Who does, for example, health care among the SPLA, among the aid agencies? None. In fact, they specifically say no soldiers can be involved in this. If they are, we can't serve them. Under federal law, by the way, that's federal law. Can we feed them if they're hungry? No, can't do that. Ration system is broken down, we cannot do that. Can we train them? Yeah, we can train them, certain limitations. Can we do literacy programs in the boat? Absolutely not. There's no literacy. We cannot spend any AID money. Neither can most of the European countries. Some of them can do it a little bit, but there's ideological reasons not to do that. I think the most important thing that we should be doing right now is strengthening the SPLA as an institution. We are doing that on a small scale with a $30 million program, most of that is construction projects. Why? When they get involved with 85% illiteracy, no chain of the command, no efforts to deal with international human rights law, there's a big problem when you send these troops into a ethnic conflict where they are a particular part of an ethnic group. So I think there are impositions or there are constraints on the UN, the World Bank, the NGOs, the contractors, the US government, the European aid agencies in a profound way. The last point I would make is this. South Sudan and North Sudan most developing are patrimonial states, they're clientel states. People keep control of violence and they keep the society from spinning into chaos through personal relationships and alliances, tribal reliances and political bosses who maintain, I don't use the word political bosses, powerful political figures who control parts of the economy, parts of the military and have tribal connections. This is true in Afghanistan, it's true in Pakistan, it's heard in Southern Sudan. What counts most in a patrimonial state are personal relationships, including with the donors. The Foreign Service Act says no one serves in any country more than four years, three years, four years, except for the PSCs, a personal service contractor, it's an AID. We move them out and in Southern Sudan and Afghanistan, it's only one year or two years, why? Because they're hardship posts. If you really wanna have an effective aid program, in my view, we need to change the Foreign Service Act and send people out for 10 years, which is by the way what we used to do in the 50s and 60s and early 70s. You know how long military officers or troops stay in Iraq, Afghanistan? One year, then they come back. And you say they're all well trained, well personal relationships count in Afghanistan. If the troops have developed personal relationships, after a year, they're gone. So it doesn't make any difference. So we have some serious institutional constraints among donors that has a profound effect on our ability to get work done in these conflict situations, particularly in Southern Sudan and it's particularly intense in Southern Sudan because of the nature of the society. Why don't we answer questions now? Okay, who would like to start? No comments or questions? Yes. Thank you so much, all four of you, for a very enlightening presentation. Some of you referred to positive examples of community level activities and broader development and thinking about the debates and themes we have heard from previous panels where we as the donors have problems with the messages we're getting from the recipient community. And yet we as the donors may not be well-beloved or our motives or our presence may be contested. What about this larger issue of what in a non-development sphere we've called strategies of emulation, of finding local regional positive examples where we can point to positive developmental initiatives going on in parts of Africa, not in South Sudan, but might it be quite relevant to how South Sudanese view their own future? They would have greater traction. I mean, thinking back to the Columbia example to use Joanna's formulation and exporter of security, we can debate what that means, but in terms of being a local credible actor in the region, are there other regional actors in Africa who have more credibility that might suggest a strategy on our part of indirection to avoid some of the brutally difficult problems we're having with donor recipient dialogue? Thank you. Who would like to respond? Noah? Jason, would you want to say something? I mean, I think you don't have to go too far beyond, even with, you can find the positive examples, as Francois mentioned, even within South Sudan and areas that are able to overcome the differences that I was presenting in terms of migration and trade and reconciliation. And so I think the idea of looking for the successes to the east and to the west of Abye, as I was pointing out, has a huge opportunity to impact the situation in Abye, in that specific case. There are relationships that have been there for a long time that are between communities that have been maintained and protected. But I think you raise a point. In some case, we had a situation where one governor said to us, do I have to have a crisis and fall apart before I get the assistance that you need to provide? Or can I do it when you come when things are going well? And I think a lot of our reward for failure, reward for problem means we miss a lot of the opportunities that are out there that could be built on, where there is success that could create, I don't know, areas of stability or examples that could have impact. Thank you. Let me mention something like this in Afghanistan. The decision was made, I will not say when, because I don't want to attribute it to any particular administration, to spend 80% of the development money, which is a huge amount of billions of dollars, in the push-dune area and the south and southwest. One, there's a huge absorptive capacity problem. Two, that's where the conflict is, that's why they want to spend the money there, but you can't spend it because of the insecurity. Governors in other areas of Afghanistan were saying, wait a second, wait a second here. We're loyal to Karzai, we're loyal to the Americans, we're with them and we're getting screwed. All the money is going to the people who are revolting. What is the message to us? Well, you need to have a little bit more disloyalty here, a little bit of chaos in order to get some money for our area. So, now I know why they put the money there because that's where the conflict is, and that's why money was put in the three areas in AID. However, the message to the other areas may not be the right message. So you have what would you call, economists would call it a trade-off, okay? You do more of one, you do less of another. There's a consequence for that. These are not, there's no formula for making these decisions, but a little bit of balance sometimes in my view would be a lot better in terms of how resources are allocated and how much attention is spent in areas. So I kind of agree with what Jason said. Now, let me just mention one point. There was a study done by one of these studies that no one wants to do. By AID, I can't remember which contractor did it. It's a brilliant study, and it looked at four countries in post-conflict situations and post-independence. One of them was Botswana. How come Botswana is probably the best governed country in Latin, in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of the best governed countries in the developing world. 12,000 per capita income. None of the very little corruption the government services have delivered well. Never had a civil war, low levels of violence, and they go back and look at the question of capacity in the government. There was none at independence in 1965. Diamonds were discovered the next year, and they made a decision to do something, quite extraordinary. The president of Botswana at the time's wife was British, and she said, apparently, to her husband, why don't you ask the British, because they were a British colony, why don't you ask the white British colonial officials to renounce their British citizenship, become Botswana citizens, and stay in the bureaucracy, and become bureaucrats of the new government of Botswana, and stay here. It was supposed to be for a few years, and it ended up being, according to this study, 20 to 30 years. They stayed there till they retired, and gradually the Botswana black African took over, and you have what you have in Botswana right now. That message, by the way, that study was used by people in the United Nations and other places to attempt to recruit career civil servants from Kenya and Ethiopia and Uganda who were retired from those bureaucracies to come help, so the hundreds have been recruited to be brought in, but not in mass enough. So are there things that work? Yes, but the question is doing them in mass sufficiently to change and alter the situation. I'm not sure yet we've been able to do that, but two years is a very short period of time. That's not a failed state. The United States was far more unstable in the early 1790s than Southern Sudan is right now. Washington led an army into Pennsylvania to put down the whiskey rebellion against his own people, by the way, in the early 1790s. Same issues in Southern Sudan, different kinds of issues, where the national government had to send their army in because of instability inside the country. I think judging the Southerners as severely as we are now, I have a problem with because no one's been able to do this as quickly as the international community thinks the Southerners should be able to do, including ourselves. Other questions? There's no other questions, yes. I'd like to ask about the return east to South Sudan. And South Sudan's independence was established. Hundreds of thousands of people came back to that country from Sudan itself, especially Khartoum, and from refugee camps, and from other cities in Africa. I'd like to ask about the impact. When people talk about return east, they mostly think about, oh, humanitarian needs, what's being done for them, what's being done to help them. But I wonder if any of you can address the absorptive capacity of South Sudan in terms of these people that are coming back with their mostly lack of agricultural experience and perhaps surprise they feel upon returning to their original homes. Where do they go and where are they absorbed and are they successful? Do they have a political impact, an economic impact, are they increasing tensions? All those questions, thank you. Yeah, I can start with that. It's a very good question. So on the one hand, particularly, South Sudanese who are coming back from the diaspora, the skills are vitally needed in the government. And I think that's being put to use to some extent, but I think on the other hand, there are some lingering questions about the willingness to absorb some of those skills. And there is this question that gets asked, unspoken or spoken of where were you during the war? And did you fight and suffer the same way me and my family did? And that's really one of the tricky dynamics that I think South Sudan is struggling with right now. Those are the sort of elite returnees. Obviously there's millions of returnees, many of them who were in and around Khartoum and are coming back, several tens of thousands of them are still sort of stuck somewhere along the way between Khartoum and South Sudan. And I think it's been a pretty, on the one hand, the return process, I think probably went pretty well compared to what could have happened and the UN had a lot to do with that. On the other hand, I think it's been a pretty rough existence for some of these returnees because they're returning in some places to villages and to rural communities that they haven't been in for some time and they had grown more accustomed to a run or semi-urban life and in and around Khartoum. And they too get the question of where were you these last few years or decades? It's gonna take some time, I think, for real integration of these people to happen, but I think there is some progress in that direction. Yes, this is the final question. I asked this lady right over here. Thank you. My name's Jennifer Oldman from Management Systems International. A couple of you, a couple of the panelists referred to the dependency of both the government and civil society on foreign aid assistance and perhaps due to complacency of the government, perhaps due to lack of trust in the government counterparts of civil society, which obviously leads to a high perception of fragility. What can be done to decrease this dependency by donors, USAID in particular, and increase the competency in South Sudan? Thank you. Well, I mean, the dependency has been acute, of course, in the past few months after the oil shutdown. And it's not been, I mean, the resources have not been matched by donors, far from it. But of course, the part of it will be addressed with the improvement of the relations between the two countries and hopefully sustain, I would say, implementation of the agreements they found or the management of the oil sector. That will definitely bring the revenues to the country that it needs to be able to support development of many of its sectors, health, education, et cetera. Now, with respect to increasing the capacities of the government to indeed address this, you know, both its needs and manage the revenues, you know, to address the needs, there has been indeed, as was mentioned by mentioned, that was an effort to try and bring countries from the region to help. Professionals across the board, technocrats, judges to build the capacities, work together with the officials of South Sudan. But it's a long process. The United Nations invested in particular into the law and order and rule of law sector. And I would say there has been some, you know, good progress with the national police, but it's the entire judicial system that needs to be overhauled and really taken care of. So it's really a long-term process and it will be, I think, important to sustain the effort to indeed mobilize the ability of countries of the region to interact with the South Sudanese and support them in a way which sometimes it's much less disruptive or let's say perceived as invasive as what donor countries from the West can do. Thanks. Let me just, in conclusion, make one comment about the oil. My own estimate is that 400,000 people, 300,000 troops, 150,000 regular, 150,000 reservists, and 100,000 civil service were on the payroll of the Southern government when the oil revenue shut down precipitously. There have been no oil revenues for a year and a half until now, okay? The gross national product declined by 65% in one year, according to the World Bank, 67%. Massive decline. So, you know, Francois said that the oil revenues was 92%, 98% of the revenue of the government. I mean, that's true, but the consequences of that stopping were far more massive than we realized. 400,000 people stopped getting paychecks, a large number of people. So, I think now that oil revenues have started, it will start to stabilize things, and I think some of the tension we're dealing with is the fact the economy collapsed last year. Anyway, thank you all very much.