Economic Development of Southern Sudan

Dr. Yongo-Bure is the leading expert on the economic history of the Southern Sudan since independence. His work is solidly grounded in the documentary sources, including especially the Sudanese government's official publications. These sources he has used systematically to reveal the neglect that has characterized the administration of the South. Far from developing the region, successive Khartoum-based regimes, starting with the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium and continuing with the civilian and military governments that followed it, paid lip service to development while starving the region of resources. By eschewing polemics Dr. Yongo-Bure only strengthens his case. Chapter by chapter, sector by sector of the economy, he lays out the resources of the region, the potential for development, the lack thereof, and the prospects for the future. What might ten or twenty years ago have been a familiar catalogue of animal and agricultural resources takes on currency because of the South's oil resources and their centrality to the second civil war (1983-2005) and the fragile peace agreement that ended it. A region that was once of interest to outsiders only because the White Nile flowed through it, may now ironically assume prominence because of its oil. Economic development of Southern Sudan is a useful handbook and guide, an ideal introduction to a complicated subject, and a good starting point for anyone interested in the history and economy of a region that may soon emrege from the status of a backwater to become an independent state.