Southern reconstruction to take time, says UNDP official

The reconstruction of southern Sudan will be a long-term process, and expectations of rapid progress in this region, which has been ravaged by decades of civil war, are unrealistic, a senior United Nations official has warned. "After peace everybody thinks manna [biblical reference to miraculous food that sustained the Israelites in the wilderness] is going to come from heaven and everything is going to be fine. That doesn't happen," Erik de Mul, head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in southern Sudan, said recently. The January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended one of Africa's longest and bloodiest civil wars provides for a six-year interim period, with democratic elections by 2009, followed by a self-determination referendum for the south. "This whole period between the signing and the referendum looks long, but in effect is very short. In six years there is not much you can do," De Mul said. He added that in post conflict situations, people were expecting to get a better life, more money and a job, all in a relatively short time. He stressed, however, that the real peace dividend in south was the lack of violence, while socio-economic development would be a drawn-out process. The most important priority was to rehabilitate the infrastructure to allow people to move around, he said, followed by improving the educational system and the provision of basic services such as a banking system and communication facilities. "There has been more than 30 years of war, no investment, and no education," De Mul said. "You cannot do anything with money if you are not organised and you don't have systems to work with the money; so that has to be put in place, which is time-consuming and costly." Although UNDP was providing assistance in setting up basic government and administrative structures, De Mul acknowledged it was "still a work in progress". "You can compare the administration of the south with a human body," he said. "You have a very developed, healthy and intelligent head - because the leadership, the ministers and the vice ministers are well-trained, well-educated, experienced people." "What is lacking is the body and the limbs," he added. "The country is divided into 10 states which all need to be built up. What we have at this point is 10 governors and a map." In Warap State, he noted, the governor had just received a prefabricated building to live and work in, while two additional buildings would provide a space for other government staff. "That is the extreme, in terms of a state having absolutely nothing," De Mul said. However, even at the central government level, the challenges are enormous. He observed that the southern minister of finance had hardly any support staff and often had to work without a phone or computer as the office was being rehabilitated. "Outside his office there are always 30 to 40 people waiting to see him, for whatever reason," he said. "He has no time-keeper and no organiser, so everybody and his uncle who feels they have to see him is at a certain point going to be seen. That system is very ineffective." De Mul said although a number of factors had slowed down the reconstruction process in the first year of peace, he hoped it could be accelerated in the second or third year, in order to have a minimum governance system in place by the time the referendum took place. "I am optimistic, provided that people have realistic expectations," he said.