Is South Sudan really benefiting from the foreign aid it receives?
South Sudan is one of the poorest countries on the planet. Many of its citizens struggle to access clean water and electricity and its new capital Juba has become a who’s who of non-governmental organisations.
But, while the aid agencies support many key sectors, their activities have also sparked criticism. These problems are complicated by a lack of infrastructure, making it very difficult to move resources around,” said humanitarian affairs consultant Michael Mastroianni in an e-mail interview.
Mastroianni specialises in logistics and community development and is a research fellow in political science at New York’s City University.
The influx of NGOs followed the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, a deal struck between the two Sudans to end the world’s longest civil war.
Usually the money is always taken back from where it came.”
Despite an around billion dollars being pumped into the country by foreign aid organisations and foreign governments, some South Sudanese people feel that they do not benefit from the international attention. Usually the money is always taken back from where it came,” said 23-year-old Ramba Beatrice. Because the topmost employees are always foreigners (sent by the donors) whose salaries are abnormally fat.”
United Nation’s relief web estimates that this year a range of agency projects will need US$ 1.16 billion to address urgent humanitarian needs in South Sudan. A report by Reuters has put the figure at just under US$ 1 billion in 2010, but said none of those funds went directly to South Sudan’s government. It covered a broad spectrum of basic needs, including security training, food, medicine, textbooks and other services. An estimated four-fifths the nation’s health care comes via outside groups.
A married woman from Yei Sub-County, Beatrice, however, argues that the resources do not filter down to people most in need.
Amid complaints that many NGOs employ largely foreigners, some organisations say their hands are tied. Scarred by more than two-decades of civil war, education in the new country remains patchy, said a researcher and lecturer from Cavendish University in Uganda, speaking on condition of anonymity.
There are not many South Sudanese qualified to take up those top jobs. Even those who are educated cannot deliver as expected,” she said, adding that most South Sudanese are uneducated, or attended the University of Juba, which she said offers a substandard education.
South Sudan’s government leans heavily on foreign aid to improve the lives of its people. While some note the government’s inability to safeguard its population, others have questioned the effectiveness of foreign aid.
NGOs in the region often lack of specialised personnel, Mastroianni said. Additionally, they typically focus on short-term bursts of emergency relief, failing to challenge underlying problems.
Sometimes it is the wrong approaches and the NGOs employees that fail them.”
Meanwhile, delivering aid is difficult, given the nation’s flawed infrastructure. Lacking roads, hospitals and other basics, aid agencies face an uphill struggle to distribute aid, especially in the rainy season, which blocks the nation’s few existing roads.
Action Africa Help-International (AAH-I) is among the many NGOs operating in South Sudan. It provides relief as well as training. But reactions to its projects are mixed, as its staff are all too aware.
Sometimes it is the wrong approaches and the NGOs employees that fail them,” said Igga David, The acting Team Leader of the AAH-I CAPOR project.
Igga David said his NGO spends more on administration than its aid activities, though he specifies that they face huge costs for transport around the country, given the absent infrastructure. And that is the reason why we fail to deliver to the expectations of the people we serve,” he added.
Since independence in 2011, almost nothing has improved for millions of citizens in South Sudan, despite the inflow of NGOs. Infrastructure development is sluggish, poverty and food shortages are rampant. But it is hard to say how much the blame should be attributed to the NGOs and how much the state is at fault.
Meanwhile, the economic odds are stacked against the young nation: Revenue sources have slumped dramatically since the start of last year, when oil, which makes up for around 97 percent of its income, was switched off amid a spat with Sudan.
But when they get it (the funds) they almost spend it all on things like buying SUVs, sleeping in air- conditioned hotels etc.”
However, patience is running thin among many. Beatrice, for example, argues that there is widespread exploitation among aid agencies. She describes working for a Bangladeshi agency she once worked at, where all the bosses were foreigners. Salaries among the Bangladeshi bosses were estimated to be around 50 times the wage of South Sudanese nationals. Beatrice wondered why NGOs should continue to operate in her little county of Yei, and South Sudan as a whole. It is the foreigners benefiting. In fact they take their money back home,” she said.
Beatrice is convinced that the relief funds are given to them (aid agencies) because of people like her. But when they get it (the funds) they almost spend it all on things like buying SUVs, sleeping in air-conditioned hotels etc.”
