South Sudan Crisis Threatens Development

The 500-bed Juba Teaching Hospital is the biggest hospital in South Sudan, but it's struggling. 

Hospital General Director Wani Lolik Lado recently took a reporter through a male ward where patients lined up in beds in an open room were being treated under rotating ceiling fans.

“We do not have sophisticated equipment. We are dealing within our capabilities," he said. 

Many of the outpatients are being treated in tents set up under trees in the central compound.

Still, the hospital continues to treat casualties of the ongoing conflict.  Doctors also successfully subdued a recent cholera outbreak, and now, staff are preparing for the next possible emergency.

Lado showed a dusty, unoccupied building in a shady corner of the hospital grounds, soon to become the facilty's Ebola wing. "This is supposed to be for us to keep somebody we suspect in the airport," he said.

It is hard to imagine the effects of a possible Ebola outbreak in a country like South Sudan, where health systems are run-down and the resources to improve them are no longer there.

Other needs

Things were looking up in 2013, when the country's government sought to devote more resources to long-term improvements in areas like health and education.  But since a political dispute in the ruling party spiraled into violence in December last year, leaving thousands dead and more than a million others displaced, money has been reallocated to other needs.

For instance, funding for security and law enforcement increased by $290 million this year compared with last, and it represents about 50 percent of the total budget.

In comparison, 5 percent goes to education and 4 percent to health.

National Assembly Finance Committee Chairman Goc Makuac said the budget makes clear that achieving peace is the first priority.

“The government will work very hard to see that peace is achieved. If peace is achieved, then there will be stability, and if stability is there, then the economy will prosper,” Makuac said.

Much of the fighting has centered around oil-producing areas of South Sudan, threatening the industry that provides the vast majority of the country's revenue.  So securing oil fields is crucial to protecting the economic interests of the country.

Donor priorities

But the crisis is also shifting priorities for donors.  Many blame the government for creating or prolonging the crisis.  As a result, international grants to the government have fallen dramatically.

“We do have to accept that this is a man-made crisis, and it was important to continue our commitment to the people of South Sudan without necessarily working through the central government,” said Teresa McGhie, the U.S. Agency for International Development's South Sudan mission director 

Like other foreign donors, USAID has increased its humanitarian assistance, in August granting $180 million in additional funding to relieve the food crisis.

The emergency needs are immense.  Nongovernmental organizations say they too have had to suspend or delay long-term projects in agriculture, water, health care and education to focus on lifesaving efforts.  The aid groups warn that, without support, more than a million people could face severe hunger by early next year.