War and other forms of violence continue to absorb critical foreign assistance that could otherwise be used for social and economic development. In fact, no conflict-affected country has been able to reach any of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (UN MDG) – a collection of the broadest and most basic global development indicators. The World Bank indirectly acknowledged this reality in its World Development Report 2011 which concludes that insecurity has become the “primary development challenge of our time.”
The 2011 report was developed to inform the World Bank’s funding and operational strategies for several violence-afflicted countries, including the world’s youngest country South Sudan. Last week on July 9, the Republic of South Sudan gained independence from its northern neighbor Sudan in what was the culmination of a peace process dating back to 2005 following many years of devastating civil war.
Regrettably, independence celebrations have been quickly tempered by the colossal task of building a nation in which one in six children die before they reach their first birthday. According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, over 190,000 people were displaced by inter-ethnic and armed conflicts in Southern Sudan in 2010. In 2009, the figure stood at approximately 391,000.