Rebuilding South Sudan: The road to economic recovery and the call for a multifaceted, system-wide response

By Ajith Ajith Pioth, Juba, South Sudan

Friday, 01 August 2025 (PW) — In this public lecture, I try to paint a picture of what the economy is, its drivers, and what we can do to recover the economy of South Sudan. I try to draw everyone’s attention to my firm belief that economic recovery is a collective responsibility, and that we need to see the growth and development in this broader, system-wide, perspective, where each institution or sector needs to move out of the sometimes limiting, unresponsive, sub-cultural margin it occupies and seek to participate and share in the collective responsibilities of the nation building. I emphasize that recovery is never a one-institution thing, say, the work of the Bank of South Sudan or the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. I repeatedly press that the economic issues are issues of everyone, and we must endeavor to work together and toward the goal of economic growth and development, both at personal and institutional level. I also try to bring to light the importance of the presence of a healthy legal-political environment for our various efforts to be effective and really impactful.

When we think of economic growth and development, there is always a prompting temptation, especially among the vast majority of the population, to think purely in terms of those perspectives taught in basic Economics classes and assume that the central banks and ministries of finance and economic planning hold the prerogative custody of the “sought-after” solution to the eminently pervasive problem of scarcity and the realization of maximum utility at the most optimal price possible, poring over thus every bit of them, hungrily savoring and filtering, while optically neglecting the multifaceted, integrative, and clustered that the process is.

The CBs and MoFEPs don’t hold the answer, and they can’t change anything without the contributions of other public sectors and the private sector. That is why, for the last thirty plus years, the high level education in Economics, PhD programs, and particularly in developed countries, like the USA, UK,  has moved past the original chassis of Classical or what they called Mainstream Economics to become something a bit more empirical, more flexible, and to cover as many other disciplines and fields as possible such as Psychology, Politics, Development, Ecology, agriculture, etc.

The purpose is to make the discipline creatively attune to the many ways human beings can fail or succeed. It is to enrich the field’s understanding of human nature, as in to know what shapes their decision making, what stimulates the collective effort, and etc in order to design suitable models for achieving a collective better life.

It’s easy to assume that if the central bank contextualizes specific monetary policy, price stability strategy, and banking system framework, while the finance docket, on the other side, concentrates on formulating sound fiscal policy necessary in managing taxation, balanced government spending, and debt reduction, we are good to go. Well, that of course lays a concrete foundation. But economic growth and development is the responsibility of everyone or all sectors.

Even if the Bank of South Sudan together with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning fully exhaust anything within their monetary and fiscal capacities, it will be as if nothing was proposed in the first place. Yes, unless of course they are met with an equal vigor and zeal by the other public sector institutions and the private sector.

Institutions such as regulatory bodies, government agencies, and state-owned enterprises play a vital role in recovering, establishing, and maintaining a fully functional economy. Besides giving their employees purchasing power to actively participate in the economy, they enforce rules and standards that promote fair competition, consumer protection, and efficient markets. SOEs also provide essential services, drive infrastructure development, and even stiffly compete with the private sector firms, which generally encourages efficiency and innovation.

The private sector is another important aspect of any economy. In the global economy, it is estimated to be more than half of the GDP, providing a high percentage of jobs, and driving investment, innovation, development, infrastructure, education, and cetera. Normally, in stable free market economies, it constitutes a significant portion, sometimes ranging from 60–85%, of both the country’s GDP, and investment rate, but that very much depends on the various factors of course, including the realities of a particular country and how much the government is determined to promote the ideals of free market economy.

The BoSS’ duty, like other central banks, is simply to ensure financial stability, and oversee the payment system, managing the nation’s currency, reserves, and financial system to maintain and set a fertile ground for economic growth and development. It doesn’t generate any considerable revenue. This last bit, the fact that it doesn’t produce, is important for the general public to know.

Central banks globally are influenced and limited by the scope of their economies. They are influenced by the size and volume of production, which is usually the first source of national income and foreign reserves, the tax revenue base, and then finally the inability to directly control other equally crucial aspects of the economy such as consumer spending, business investment, technological advancements, etc, all of which drive and determine the overall economic performance.

For example, a larger and more robust kind of economy, say, with a diversified tax base, provides central banks with more flexibility and enough resources to manage inflation, maintain financial stability, and support sustainable economic growth. Conversely, on the other side of the coin, a smaller or volatile economy, coupled with a weak tax revenue base, constrains the central bank’s actions and potentially undermines its credibility as the top financial regulator.

The central bank usually works within the parameters set forth by the economic realities of a particular country to control the money supply, set a reasonable interest rate, regulate commercial banks and other financial institutions, build and manage foreign reserves, provide liquidity in times of bankruptcy or liquidity crisis, ensure on-time and efficient payments, transfers, multi-lateral settlements, and cetera.

Also the ministry of finance, though it is a key governmental body responsible for financial resources and economy, playing a vital role in formulating and implementing fiscal policy i.e managing public finances and overseeing even the financial sector, is limited by various factors such as the country’s political and legal structures, the strength and cooperation of other public sectors, and finally the economic context.

I want to simply say that economic recovery or growth is a complex process, quite a long labyrinth that calls on every sector to partake and do its bit. So, in addition to having a joint agenda, cooperation, and collective responsibility among the various economic sectors, stakeholders, and development partners, especially the Bretton Woods Institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), etc, to devise a comprehensive, context-driven, roadmap and strategy, everyone must attune to the predicate and outlay of the overall economic agenda, vision, and aspirations.

There must be a bigger agenda, a bigger picture, one that is patriotic in nature and richly multi-sectoral, an uncompromised national goal that stands above everything else, and which must compel and call for undivided attention among the economic sectors, both public and private, to diligently work and invest in certain identified areas of our national interest and concern. This agenda must be designed by our own. Our partners and development agencies will then choose what fits their programs and funding to support, but we must have a homegrown strategy and roadmap handy.

Economic growth is a collaborative work. It is the function of sustained coordinated efforts by various groups of seemingly antithetical but subtly dependent variables, a very delicate process in which everything is interdependent and has the potential to delay or mess up the whole thing, quite akin to the musical band where different folks play different instruments in a harmonious manner. That’s why we emphasize the vital roles of peace and security, not for their own sake, but for what they can afford us.

We must endeavor to seek ways to bring amicable solutions to all areas across the country with the annoyingly disturbing, perennial, communal violent conflicts. The guns must be silenced, security be sought, and the permanent real peace realized. Such conflicts undermine the collective effort. We must use any means possible as long as it doesn’t exaggerate the already pervasive conflict, to bring law and order. And that’s, in a larger part, the responsibility of our both legal and political practitioners.

Law and politics sit at the very heart of human development, and we cannot do anything meaningful unless we first bend the two together in a way that favors us. They are the benchmark of growth and development. They set a limit to what a country can and cannot achieve, shaping everything thus from everyday life, the development policy, and the usage of national revenue, and as well as other components of a healthy legal-political environment such as peace and security.

The million-dollar question to ask now is whether our politics has, within its practice and dimension, the means to uncover the meaning that can sustain life and allow the economic and cultural development of our people. Politics ought to be rigorously structured in such a way that supports the country’s economic and social aspirations.

If you look at economies all over the world, you see that they seem to follow a certain pattern that makes them more like people. Economies are just like us. They live. They grow. They suffer. They heal, and they die. They are pretty much predictable. They are an insignia, a sort of report card I suppose, of  people’s capacities and what they can do with what they have. In other words, we are our economy, and our economy is us.

The economy is not just simply a system of production, distribution, and consumption.
It is more than just that. It represents the outcome of interplay between the external influence and the collective culture of its people, a blended function of geopolitics and the trends in the global market on the one hand, and the country’s local politics, policies, and the general behaviors of both public and private institutions on the other hand, all these then woven to produce it.

We cannot down play the role of culture. Culture as a way of life and a way of being is a collective unannounced economic decision. It is safe to say that our economy is cultural at its core. The same way a dysfunctional family has difficulties rising above its pitfalls, so is a dysfunctional society. We must adopt a culture, a way of life, that brings the best out of us and assures us of success and a bright future. That is why the idea of a joint agenda is very important because it forges a new culture of working together for a common good.

Even the questions of liberty and prosperity which are so easily segmented from the questions of politics and the workings of an economy, often posed as if they are totally different kinds of inquiries, are contained, pondered upon, and addressed within the broader, heavily loaded, questions of the latter. It’s only when a man has food to eat, water to drink, and shelter to lay his head in, only then do the questions of liberty and prosperity become more appealing to explore. No hungry folk can frequent Jebel Kujur for fun when he has the option to seek a way of survival unless he is a hungry fool.

The Economy ought to set a precedent to which others follow. It is not an end in itself. It is an enabler of the other ends; it forms the foundation for human flourishing. It opens doors to endless possibilities. It unlocks the doors to exploring deep and wide the human quest for freedom, liberty, comfort, happiness, and fulfilment. It is the key, if you may, the holy grail, to ensure human dignity is preserved, and the men (as in both males and females) have the necessities, opportunities, and options to grow and develop into whatever they want.

Ajith Ajith Pioth is a South Sudanese citizen, writer, thinker, researcher, with interest in Banking and Economic matters. Disclaimer: the views expressed herein are my own and they don’t represent any institution or party, and they are not politically motivated either. They are purely the opinions of the writer shared for the love of our country, South Sudan.

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