South Sudan – Development by Proxy vs Proximal Development
7 min readBy Christopher Douglas, USA
June 19, 2015 (SSB) — I want to present an unconventional opinion amid the news of killing and destruction in South Sudan: South Sudan is not a failed state.
What failed in South Sudan is a policy we can call “Development by Proxy”, and what succeeded we can call “Proximal Development”.
If “development” means improving overall access to political power and economic opportunity – especially for the poorest (i.e. most excluded and most marginalized) – then “Development by Proxy” means providing significant resources to an already accessible and central group (the Elites) as a means to improving the economic and political access of the poor.
Think of it as “Trickle Down” nation building.
The alternative – “Proximal Development” (borrowing from psychologist Lev Vygotsky) – is when you directly concentrate on the poorest people and poorest areas, build off of what is already there and what already works, and direct your resources towards creating marginal improvements (i.e. just beyond the current level, then just beyond that, etcetera). You don’t move as fast, but in the long term you move further and you’re less likely to fall back.
I consider most of the endogenous and exogenous development occurring in South Sudan to be “Development by Proxy”. It is failing with painful and lethal consequences.
Part I
The focus of international support has been on South Sudan’s governing institution: the leadership and armed forces of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, of their allies, and of their opponents who are too big to be ignored (including many now within the SPLM-O opposition movement). The oil industry is included within this institution, as it is the government’s main source of money and money the main source of its continuing power through patronage and military force.
In many ways both Elites and the poor benefit from the same services like education, business subsidies and health care. Elites might benefit even more, because they can control who gets access to those schools and hospitals and assign administrative positions. So, because of the concentration of power among South Sudanese Elites, these top players within the aforementioned leadership capture or distort flows of aid intended for the poor and marginalized (those without sufficient economic access or a political voice).
Examples include the “Dura Saga” ($2 billion in funds misappropriated by government-affiliated companies), the millions of dollars’ worth of vehicles (Land Cruisers, tractors) distributed mostly among the Elite and their satraps, and other transfers of money, company positions or government offices.
The international community abetted this, whether they wanted to or not.
Part II
The goal of an independent South Sudan was locked into a “Build up the SPLM/A” goal on an unreasonably short timeline, by a confluence of humanitarian and military interests.
It shouldn’t be surprising that the U.S. Government directed most resources towards the SPLM/A. From Presidents W. Bush to Obama, South Sudan is viewed within the context of the War on Terror (e.g. Sudan’s NCP Party flirted with Al Qaeda, the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, the presence of Al Shabab) and the inchoate attempts to contain China’s regional interests. What Washington wanted was an organization capable of keeping Bad Guys out while keeping its population from supporting or becoming Bad Guys.
Unlike the Middle East, this is not about oil for Uncle Sam. The USA wants less and less of Africa’s oil – if they barely want to deal with the logistics and security of importing from Angola or Nigeria, then South Sudan is more than out of the picture.
Those aid groups and faith-based organizations not motivated by the base motive of lucrative contracts would have been inspired to immediate action by the catalogue of human misery in Darfur and memories of the Ethiopian famine, the Rwandan genocide and the 2008 Kenyan riots. In order to do as much as possible and as soon as possible, they would have to work with the Elites.
Even for those aid organizations who wanted to have a deep and long-term focus on changing the distribution of power after years of repression and civil war, there was virtually no breathing room in between the 1989-2005 war and the one that began in 2013. In times of crisis almost every dollar and drop of fuel goes towards providing emergency medical care, food and shelter.
For both the humanitarians and the geopolitical strategists, Hirschman’s “Hiding Hand” principle was likely also in play. People either had a “How Hard Could It Be?” naivete reminiscent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, or manipulated events a la Willie Brown (“If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would [get started].”
A policy of “Development by Proxy” wasn’t the Prime Mover behind South Sudan’s current misfortune. But it laid plenty of tracks leading to where the country is now: trapped by a war among Elite-sponsored armies and militias for political power and oil revenue. A war that continues today – burned village by burned village, graveyard by graveyard, refugee camp by refugee camp.
Part III
“Proximal Development” would build upon what some South Sudanese communities are already doing, and how they are doing it.
The economic approach could improve the income of rural communities by concentrating on rural cooperatives and traditional trading relationships with neighbors such as Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia.
Organized cooperatives are a good way to share knowledge and materials, manage different roles within a business, and collectively bargaining for better deals in South Sudan. By directing more resources towards cooperatives there would be more support for sponsoring entrepreneurs and startup businesses, enhancing culture (theater, sports, fashion, creative design), and in general improving the economic value of rural areas (making them more connected by road and telecommunications).
It is likely no coincidence that some the most successful economic interventions have involved cooperatives. For example, the first industrial-scale flour mill is worked by the Savannah Farmers Cooperative, the first South Sudanese export to the USA is honey and shea butter from the River Nile International and Lulu Works cooperatives, and the country’s only central electricity provider outside of Juba is the Yei Electric Cooperative.
A “Proximal Development” approach could organize connections between rural cooperatives, a network perhaps operating on a contract-production basis to supply urban, national and regional markets.
Part IV
For intra- and intergroup administration of local services, conflict resolution and distribution of local resources both one can look to the face-to-face conferences organized by South Sudan’s many ethnic groups (sometimes called “tribes” within South Sudan). This is also how most business of governance is conducted in the governments of South Sudan’s 10 states. It is where aid organizations have had some their best success, in supporting public forums for discussion.
Long before the United Nations or the Anglo-Egyptian administration of the British Empire, this was how South Sudan’s tribes settled disputes about trades or territory, brides or battles. There are plenty of reported contemporary examples. South Sudanese Dinka and Sudanese Misseriya meet to try and defuse tensions before they become lethal exchanges. Mundari nomads and Bari farmers try to compromise on sharing land for crops and cattle.
This is about messy democracy, requiring constant updates and improvements. These conferences are not “Grand Bargains” – unanimous permanent agreements that settle everything – or a Rousseau-like romanticizing of pacifist “noble savages” that resolves all problems through dialogue.
They don’t always work. But they have a better track record than the ephemeral “power sharing” agreements building up to the ongoing bloody dispute between the SPLM and the SPLM-O. As recently as this February, representatives from South Sudan’s many communities – selected independent of SPLM/SPLM-O – crafted their own peace agreement to end the current fighting.
Compare that to the failed compromises among the SPLM and SPLM-O elites, those that led to the bloody massacres of December 2013, and those producing an endless succession of broken peace agreements.
This should be researched. For example, in the current cases where these inter-ethnic conferences fail to prevent widespread violence, how often is there Elite interference? When “cattle herders” shoot farmers it is said they are linked to a wealthy politician or general. Ethnic militias are paid and armed by their respective governments (Khartoum or Juba) to war over territory. The states with the strongest tradition of local conferences and the least intervention by SPLM/SPLM-O elites – Western and Central Equatoria – have traditionally been the most food-secure and the most peaceful (even during the current unrest).
If a “Proximal Development” of governance starts at the grassroots level, perhaps it would even build up to a new Constitutional Convention for South Sudan. This time one more inclusive of South Sudanese community input. (Despite the role of prominent South Sudanese legal minds like John Luk Jok, how much of the current Interim Constitution was written by international “think tanks”?)
There might also be a separate agreement concerning the allocation of oil revenue, emulating the mostly successful Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in the United States.
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